


The Chronicler

by sturms_sun_shattered



Series: Rito Chronicles [5]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Blood and Gore, Dark, Family Drama, Gen, Mild Horror, Mild Sexual Content, Population Decline, Rated For Violence, Rito Politics, Rito Village, Serious Injuries, Worldbuilding, battles, power struggles, pre-game, unreliable narrators
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24558856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sturms_sun_shattered/pseuds/sturms_sun_shattered
Summary: Before Kaneli was acclaimed Elder of Rito Village, he served as the tribe’s First Warrior, and the village Chronicler.  Living isolation from the rest of Hyrule, and suffering from a dwindling population, Kaneli fears that his diaries contain the last days of the Rito.  It is his sad duty to record the darkest days of the village.On this day, Deep Winter, 78 years since the Great Calamity, I enter into the Chronicle with heavy heart the death of our First Warrior, Tukoh son of Tala and Oreli.  He is survived by his wife Osol and his son Teba...
Series: Rito Chronicles [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757296
Comments: 26
Kudos: 13





	1. A Warrior’s End

**Author's Note:**

> This might not make sense without having read the rest of _Rito Chronicles_. I started writing this concurrently with _For Ages to Come_ so there is some cross pollination between the two, but when I later started _The Flock_ this fic was pretty solidified in my mind and there are probably some good treats between the two that you can piece together. (I'm ambitious with this, what can I say?)
> 
> Blanket warning: This is the darkest installment of _Rito Chronicles_. **_Content warnings will be located in the endnotes_** (at the end of the last chapter, link below). This is a thing I've been doing to avoid spoilers, and I will note in new chapters if anything has been added to the content warning list.

_On this day, Deep Winter, 78 years since the Great Calamity, I enter into the Chronicle with heavy heart the death of our First Warrior, Tukoh son of Tala and Oreli. He is survived by his wife Osol and his son Teba..._

**Kaneli**

Kaneli had long ago given up the role of First Warrior, not by duel but by choice. Though he had come of age in this warrior culture that valorized a warrior’s death as something honourable and desirable, Kaneli was hatched in the remoteness of the Hebra Wilds. There—his parents had often reminded him—there was no shame in fleeing from danger if it meant you lived another day. During his tenure as First Warrior he had tried to impress this upon his charges, but to no avail; the fear of being labelled a coward ran too deep among the Rito.

That Kaneli had even joined this hunt was a testament to the danger their tribe faced if the lynel from the mountains was not stopped. It had come down chasing prey which had grown scarce in the harshness of that winter. For a day, it raged and paced along the edge of Lake Totori, howling its wrath and harassing the village with arrows nearly as large as spears. The Rito huddled in their roosts, fearing that their movements would draw its ire. 

When it became apparent that the beast would not give up its assault until it had drawn the Rito out into the open, Tukoh, the First Warrior, summoned Kaneli and the warriors of the tribe to huddle with him behind the great pillar. Arrows chipped away bits of stone around them as the lynel stalked the perimeter of the lake, tormenting the village.

“We have no choice,” Tukoh told them, his brow furrowed. “We must engage this beast before he skewers us.”

Tukoh was young for a First Warrior, but had inherited the role as Kaneli’s protégé. Kaneli’s fine reputation and endorsement of Tukoh’s skills meant that Tukoh’s warriors followed him without hesitation despite his youth.

“Our young are at risk,” agreed Avill, the bow-maker with feathers the colour of pitch.

“In this task we cannot risk our novices or women,” Tukoh said. “Kaneli, we need your skill to make up for their absence.”

Kaneli had not engaged in battle since his last flight as First Warrior; the leather brace that still bound his shattered leg remained a testament to his own hubris in that flight. He vowed to take caution with him into this one.

There was no place where those shafts did not fly as Kaneli and the other warriors took off from opposite sides of the pillar to flank the beast. From the air, they dodged the arrows with relative ease as as they set out over the lake, drawing the beast’s attacks away from their families.

To his left, he heard Tukoh’s whistle for them to distract the beast. Kaneli and Tukoh dived in close to divert its attention so that Akarth and Usli could swoop in with a shower of bomb arrows. Enraged, the lynel lashed out at the attackers with its huge, inelegant blade. Kaneli and Tukoh circled and came in from behind to target its head while it was distracted.

The lynel reacted with such speed and ferocity that Kaneli could not have anticipated it. Kaneli’s flight feathers caught fire as the lynel bellowed its fire breath at him. He heard Tukoh shriek as he, too, was caught in the flame. Kaneli hit the ground, the flames around him going out as he rolled across the hardened crust of sintered snow.

Above him Avill whistled, and Skoss and Eloza took their shots. His feathers may have been damaged, but Kaneli notched his bow with two bomb arrows and whistled a proximity warning to the other warriors. The shots landed, scorching the beast’s fur and further enraging it. It leaned forward and charged at Kaneli on four hooves and two clawed hands. Unable to flee between his useless leg and his damaged feathers, Kaneli took the crushing impact of the beast’s body, his ribs exploding with pain as he bounced off of the lynel and into the snow.

When he glanced up from where he landed, it was to see Avill falling from the sky, his wings aflame with the lynel’s breath. Akarth—out of bomb arrows—shot the lynel in the eye with one of his few remaining arrows and dodged the ensuing flame. 

Though they harried the beast between them—harassing it with bomb arrows and sticking it with enough regular arrows that it began to resemble a pin cushion—it never seemed to tire. As the lynel hurled itself at Skoss, Tukoh leapt upon the beast’s back. 

The First Warrior—one wing burned bald from the flame—grasped the beast’s mane and sank his feathered edge into the back of its neck. The lynel reached behind its back with a sharp hand and threw Tukoh to the ground with such force that the light Rito body broke through the hardened snow. The lynel ripped the blade from its back with a feline howl and sank it into Tukoh’s trapped form.

As Kaneli crawled through the snow to his protégé, Usli took out the creature’s remaining eye with clean shot and Akarth daringly buried his feathered edge up to the hilt in the creature’s abdomen and slashed its throat with a dagger. Defeated, the lynel fell to nothing more than ominous smoke and viscera.

Kaneli knew it was too late as soon as he saw Tukoh. The snow-white feathers singed black, Tukoh wrapped his shaking hand around the hilt of the blade buried in his own chest.

“Tukoh, leave it,” Kaneli told him as he scrambled through the snow to his side.

Tukoh—stubborn as always—yanked the blade free with a gasp and let it drop into the snow beside him. Kaneli slipped a shaking wing under Tukoh’s head as the First Warrior grimaced and pressed both his hands over his wound.

“Kaneli...”

“It’s alright, I’m right here.”

Kaneli unbuckled a the shoulder and side straps of Tukoh’s leather cuirass so he could pull it aside and see to the wound. His eyes prickled with tears when he saw the severity of the injury beneath the armour.

“Bad then?” the First Warrior grunted

“Oh, Tukoh,” Kaneli whispered.

“That’s what I thought,” Tukoh managed, closing his eyes against the pain.

“Just lie still.”

Kaneli tried to comfort the warrior he had trained since childhood with a gentle hand on his face. Tukoh looked up at his mentor, his emerald eyes filled with a silent plea.

“Please,” grimaced Tukoh, “do for my son what you have done for me...what I cannot...”

“You son shall want for nothing,” Kaneli promised, stroking the damaged feathers.

Tukoh sucked in his breath harshly, his body shuddering. Akarth landed beside Kaneli, his expression as stony as always.

“Rest now,” said Kaneli, his tears overflowing at the sight of Tukoh’s pain.

“Grant me...a boon,” Tukoh begged of him.

“I fear I cannot,” Kaneli choked.

“Akarth...” 

Kaneli and Akarth exchanged a silent look and the blue-grey Rito pulled a light dagger from his belt, his expression unchanged. As Kaneli leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Tukoh’s, he clasped the featherless hand that cupped his face.

“Thank you...my mentor...my friend,” said Tukoh as Kaneli pressed his beak to his feathers.

“Go with the Goddess.”

Kaneli turned away as Akarth followed through with Tukoh’s request. Kaneli flinched and glanced back at the warrior. Akarth had seen to his duty without hesitation, but now his hands shook and he let the dagger fall into the snow beside him.

“Tell my children that I will return when the new moon has cleansed me of this cling of death,” said Akarth darkly.

Kaneli did not even have time to respond as Akarth pushed off with his legs and took off into the sky.

\---

The returning warriors were met at the village entrance by the elder and the rest of the village. Usli and Skoss bore their lost First Warrior to the stack. Osol covered her face and wept at the sight of her husband’s broken body, but Teba—barely old enough to know how to respond to death—only stared numbly at his father. They followed as the body was borne up to their roost for their night of vigil.

“Was our father lost as well?” 

Kaneli turned to see a sea green Rito in the beginnings of adolescence, his wings crossed over his younger sister as he rested his head atop hers. Genik appeared solemn, as though he had prepared himself for such a day. Amali gripped her brother’s wings where they rested on her shoulders, her expression as resigned as Akarth’s had been when he had grasped his dagger.

“You father was not lost,” said Kaneli, “but he will be away until the new moon.”

“Why?” asked Amali.

“Not now,” Genik told her, glancing back to where Usli and Skoss disappeared up the boardwalk. 

Kaneli sighed and rested a singed hand on Genik’s shoulder. The lad may have been scrawny for his age, but he was sharp.

“I must go,” Kaneli said, turning from Genik.

As he limped toward the winding boardwalk, a gentle hand upon his wing stopped him and he turned to see the elder. She was tiny and shrunken with age and her plumage was pale grey yet still shone with iridescence. In her colourless eyes was a deep sadness.

“Kaneli, you must see the healer,” Nasoli told him.

“I must first see to...his family.”

“I will go to them,” insisted Nasoli. “You mustn’t risk your health like this again.”

“I would rather you didn’t mother me,” Kaneli told her. “I’m far too old.”

“Ah, and there we cut to the heart of the matter. You are indeed too old to play at being a warrior.”

Kaneli kept his beak clamped shut as Nasoli accompanied him up the boardwalk; he despised her lectures and had often told her so. Today, he no longer had the energy as he fought through his heartbreak and fatigue simply to stay upright.

“You are meant for greater things than death in battle,” she said. “Don’t waste yourself on something so foolish.”

“Yes, Elder,” he said, if only to have her off of his case.

She reached up and patted his shoulder as they arrived at the healer’s roost. Inside, Avill held his young son in his lap as the healer treated his burned wing. Harth leaned his head back against his father’s breast in clear relief that Avill had returned.

Kaneli entered the roost with a sad sigh, lamenting that today, yet another child in their village had been left with only one parent.

_As of this day, I pledge that I will oversee the training of Teba, son of Tukoh and Osol, so that he might be prepared for the challenges ahead._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter features a lot of names of Rito sort of flying by, but future chapters will be a little slower with OCs and will start from a place of the familiar (for example, Kaneli’s point of view). The chapters that I have written so far also feature OCs that were mentioned or featured in ‘Age of Intolerance’. Plans for later chapters feature the old gang of Teba, Harth, Amali and Saki (and Antilli), but I don’t love writing about kids, so they need a few chapters to grow up.


	2. Under Your Wing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Usli is declared First Warrior; Kaneli commences training with Teba; the elder, Nasoli, confronts Kaneli.

_On this day, Deep Winter, 78 years since the Calamity, I put to paper that Usli, youngest son of Tor and Nasoli, has ascended to the rank of First Warrior, widely acclaimed and without opposition._

**Kaneli**

The choosing of First Warrior was much like the choosing of the elder of the tribe. The position was to be filled by the warrior in whom the other warriors most placed their trust. Unlike the choosing of the elder, if a challenge arose, it was fought in hand-to-hand combat and the winner took the title by the grace of the Goddess. Trial by combat was rare, but existed as a means of deposing First Warriors who overstepped the bounds of their positions. 

Kaneli was in attendance as warriors from the most novice trainees to the most skilled veterans gathered along the edge of the Flight Range to make their voices heard. Though his raised wing no longer counted among the warriors, Kaneli’s voice still carried weight, and he had come to give his endorsement to Usli, the son of the Elder.

Much like his mother, Usli was tall and silver-grey with an iridescent crest and a thin beak. He was not among the most skilled warriors, but he was agreeable and had trained the novices for several years. Kaneli knew that the warriors tended to favour skill in combat as the determinant of a good First Warrior, but he had long sought to change that narrow-minded paradigm. 

Usli stood before the warriors unchallenged, as was often the case. Kaneli had noticed that warriors rarely coveted the role of First Warrior. It was a position that came with its own honours, but the responsibility for the lives of the men and women who served as warriors was a weight that Kaneli had been relieved to shed.

It was with a look of immense pride that Usli walked down the line of warriors, gripping their wings and the elbow in a warrior’s exchange. He offered kind words to the novices—his own trainees—and clasped their shoulders affectionately. 

When he approached Eloza, Usli’s demeanour changed. As they gripped each other’s wings, the fawn-coloured Rito’s eyebrows lowered and he leaned in to whisper something that made Usli’s pleased expression grow wary. Usli pulled back and let go of Eloza, staring at his grim countenance with a look of trepidation. 

Next to them, Senla cleared her throat expectantly, and Usli quickly collected himself and carried on down the line of warriors, though it was with that haunted look from whatever Eloza had told him. As he reached the end of the line, he dismissed the warriors and fell back beside Kaneli.

“Whatever was that about?” asked Kaneli.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” obstructed Usli.

“I know these warriors well,” Kaneli told him graciously. “Perhaps I might be of some help.”

“Akarth,” Usli uttered beneath his breath.

“Ah,” said Kaneli.

Kaneli was glad that Akarth still remained on his self-imposed exile to shed the cling of death that followed him after the mercy he had granted Tukoh on the battlefield. Akarth’s skill and imposing presence would no doubt have swayed the warriors in his favour if he ever wished to stand as First Warrior.

“Eloza was concerned that Akarth may challenge me upon his return...that he preys upon...” Usli trailed off for a moment, his pale eyes darting over his shoulder, “ _weakness_.”

“Usli, your consideration for the lives of others does not make you weak. It is a strength that keeps you from recklessly sending your warriors into danger.”

“Perhaps it’s seen as indecision.”

“I understand that taking over this role can be difficult,” said Kaneli, “but warriors are not typically given to leadership disputes. Even Akarth will not likely challenge your claim.”

“Even given our past?”

“Akarth was not fond of Tukoh, nor even of me. Whatever his motivation, he falls behind the leader.”

“Even one who is only in that position because his mother is Elder?” Usli asked with a suspicious glance at Kaneli.

So he did know that Nasoli had petitioned Kaneli on her son’s behalf. Regardless of Nasoli’s interference, Kaneli would have come out in favour of Usli’s leadership.

“I dread the day that I will lie begging for mercy and Akarth will deliver it,” said Usli darkly.

Kaneli still dreamt of the sound of Akarth’s dagger, only in his dreams he could not look away as Tukoh breathed his last.

“It won’t come to that,” Kaneli assured him.

\---

Teba was quite a tough little chick, Kaneli was beginning to realize. He had remained stoic through his father’s funeral though his mother wept bitterly. Seeing her pain, Teba had reached out to hold her wing in comfort and stared at the ledge of rock where his father’s body lay wrapped in cloth. Kaneli had attended far too many of these funerals, and he had never before seen a child behave with the composure that Teba had. He wondered if Teba’s generation was so scarred from the horror they had seen during the Collapse that they simply could not process grief.

Kaneli began training with Teba very soon after. Though young, his father had often taken him to the Flight Range and had commissioned Avill to craft a small bow so that Teba might learn the skill of archery ahead of the other children in the village. Avill’s creation had been jokingly called the hummingbird bow for its size and light-weight, but Teba wielded it just as any novice might wield a swallow bow.

“You must look where you want the arrow to go,” Kaneli heard a youthful voice shouting as he and Teba arrived at the Flight Range.

Kaneli peered down into the basin where a skinny youth the colour of storm clouds shouted encouragement to his sea green companion. Kyvoro and Genik did not see Kaneli and Teba watching them from the landing.

“Father said I shouldn’t use the range while others are practising,” Teba told Kaneli solemnly.

“And why is that?”

“Unless you are among full warriors, you might get hurt by stray arrows,” Teba told him.

“That’s very wise,” agreed Kaneli. “I’m sure Kyvoro and Genik will be finished in due time. Let’s wait by the fire and make sure that our equipment is in order.”

Teba nodded and sat down by the fire and checked his bow for faults as methodically as Tukoh had examined his own equipment. Kaneli stretched out his braced leg uncomfortably on the floor as he joined his. Teba was the very image of Tukoh at the same age—solemn and focused. Turning his hummingbird bow in his hands, Teba looked unusually pensive.

“What troubles you?” Kaneli asked.

“My father said that warriors wouldn’t get hurt training...but lots of warriors were hurt in the battle...and my father fell even though he promised he would always return.”

“It is an important responsibility to be a warrior; warriors must choose each day to risk their lives to protect the village from danger.”

“But why do they have to die?” asked Teba quietly.

“Your father was very brave,” said Kaneli while images of Tukoh fighting through his injuries flashed through his mind and nearly choked him with grief. “He gave his life willingly for the safety of the people he cared for—you and your mother, the people of the village, and his fellow warriors. He left his feathers as a warrior, and there is no shame in that.”

“I’m not ashamed,” said Teba.

“Kaneli,” said Kyvoro in surprise as he and Genik came to rest on the landing.

“Kyvoro, Genik,” Kaneli greeted the two.

Genik stared uncomfortably at Teba, and Kaneli suspected that he carried the knowledge of what his father did in silence. These things were not spoken about openly, and Kaneli thanked the Goddess for that; Teba did not need any more weight on his tiny shoulders.

“We’ve finished for the day if you have need of the range,” Kyvoro offered.

“Thank you,” Kaneli told the novice.

Kyvoro nodded curtly and he and Genik took off into the updraft. Teba watched expressionlessly after them and the look in his eyes made Kaneli wonder if Teba was aware of what Genik’s father had done. He decided not to chance it by asking.

“Come, my protégé,” said Kaneli, standing with great effort, “let’s see you hit some targets.”

\---

The hour was late, but Kaneli remained at work into the dark winter night. The warm glow of two lanterns which sat on his desk provided barely enough light to write by, and he sat on a low stool so that he might stretch out his leg beneath his desk. Such furnishings were rare in Rito Village, but Kaneli had commissioned these for his use as Chronicler. 

Kaneli lifted his attention from his work has he heard someone approaching his roost.

“I was unsure that you ever did as bidden,” Nasoli said, her gnarled walking stick thumping gently on the floor of Kaneli’s roost as she entered.

Kaneli dashed a bit of sand across the pages of the hand-bound book where he recorded the goings on of the village. The few pages before his were filled with Nasoli’s script from her time as Chronicler, and the Rito boasted six other bound volumes dating back to before the Calamity. As was his duty, Kaneli kept these in his care, though he had not yet bothered to acquaint himself with the texts. 

In the few weeks since Tukoh’s death, Nasoli insisted that he needed to become more informed about the history of the village. Indeed, she had sent him a chest of scrolls that contained records of marriages and hatchings of the last century, but in the melancholy that hung about him since Tukoh’s death, Kaneli found he could barely rouse himself to do more than put to paper the important events in the village. The loss of his protégé was an open wound that festered with guilt, slowly poisoning him.

“I think you should reconsider your position on Tukoh’s ancestry,” she said. “Don’t carry on with this farce and make Teba bear such a responsibility.”

“I don’t believe it is a farce. Tala’s claim was well-supported—”

“The desires of foolish Rito wishing to make a hero from a man are not evidence to a ludicrous claim, Kaneli. In any case, we do not know that Tukoh was his son.”

“They both had green eyes,” argued Kaneli, “in a shade that remains uncommon among Rito.”

“Uncommon perhaps, but not unheard of. Tukoh and Tala’s resemblance ends there, and he did not resemble Oreli any more than Tala. You have taken a tragic loss and warped it to your own gain,” Nasoli admonished him.

“If not Tala and Oreli, from whence did Tukoh come?” Kaneli responded with equal obstinacy.

“Let it rest, Kaneli,” she warned. “This village does not need to live in the shadow of a failed Rito Champion.”

“Why, to slander the departed Master Revali is so unbecoming of the Village Elder,” he said audaciously.

“The last thing we need is Rito elevated to the level of deities just to preserve some grandiose notion of our place in the world,” Nasoli snapped. “Our numbers decline and the diversity of our ancestors dwindles. Instead of trying to trace a line to Revali’s family, your time might be better served determining who shares common ancestors so that the next generation is not our last.”

As Kaneli watched Nasoli leave, he refused to feel ashamed for his role in lifting an orphaned Rito from scorn to respect. Though, he silently conceded, Teba need never shoulder the mantle of his father before him.


	3. The Bow-Maker's Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Excerpt from The Chronicle: _Late Spring, 78 years since the Calamity. Our Esteemed Elder, Nasoli, has declared that unmarried Rito approaching marriageable age have until the summer solstice to arrange mates. These matches must be approved by the elder to avoid consanguinity. As potential matches are proposed, I find that I am buried in scrolls, tracing the bloodlines of all of our youth._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to my friend Lit the Impaler for helping me fix a few things with this chapter. They're not even in this fandom...and I've been harassing them with Rito since February. What a pal!

_Late Spring, 78 years since the Calamity. Our esteemed Elder, Nasoli, has declared that unmarried Rito approaching marriageable age have until the summer solstice to arrange mates. These matches must be approved by the elder to avoid consanguinity. As potential matches are proposed, I find that I am buried in scrolls, tracing the bloodlines of all of our youth._

**Kyvoro**

The night was cool for spring and slightly windy, but the sky above was crystal clear. Kyvoro watched as Avill carried his son in his wings, gently pacing back and forth on the boardwalk in front of their roost. As Kyvoro approached his brother, Avill made a brief gesture for silence and replaced his hand on the back of Harth’s head to soothe the child as he stirred. Even in the moonlight, Kyvoro noticed that patches of feathers that had been burned away on Avill’s upper wing in the lynel attack had not grown back after his spring moult and the skin beneath remained raw with scarring.

Kyvoro sat back on a railing to wait for his brother. The small creak from Kyvoro’s weight against the railing woke Harth, who was suddenly alert and frightened. Avill cast Kyvoro a dark look in as he smoothed his son’s crest and spoke comfortingly to him.

Kyvoro retreated to Revali’s Landing to avoid incurring Avill’s wrath. Avill was not given to fits of anger, though Kyvoro would not want to test that where Harth was concerned. He sat meditatively until he heard his brother’s low whistle summoning him back to the boardwalk.

“Harth has trouble sleeping on windy nights,” explained Avill in a low voice as Kyvoro approached. “The sounds of the roosts shifting makes him fear another Collapse.”

“I didn’t mean to set him off,” Kyvoro apologized.

“It’s alright. He’s asleep now,” sighed Avill as he glanced back into the roost.

“Why did you summon me?” asked Kyvoro.

“There have been...overtures made.”

“What?”

“Marriage, Kyvoro.”

“For you?”

“Why would I summon you to talk about inquires about me?” Avill asked, his eyes narrowed in annoyance.

“Not about me?” said Kyvoro incredulously.

Avill just stared at him in that irritating eldest-sibling way he always did.

“I’m an adult, I can handle advances made toward me,” Kyvoro told him flatly.

“Well in that case, I’ll send Misa and her mother to negotiate with you the next time they ask.”

“Misa? What did you tell them?” asked Kyvoro, horrified.

“What should I tell them? Perhaps to go visit you at your roost?”

Misa’s mother, Cosoth, was notoriously shrewd and singularly determined. Kyvoro feared even to speak to her, though he could hardly imagine that Avill would fare much better with a woman of such command.

“Avill, please don’t.”

“Oh, are you not an adult anymore?”

Kyvoro clenched his beak.

“I don’t want to marry Misa,” he said stiffly. 

“You may find it difficult to find a mate whose parents are willing to allow you to marry her,” Avill warned.

“Why is that?”

“You know why,” sighed Avill.

“Because of Ithi?” Kyvoro asked angrily.

Avill nodded.

“There’s nothing wrong with her,” Kyvoro fumed.

“We know that, but Rito looking for strong bloodlines tend to avoid families with...sickly children.”

“She’s not sickly.”

“We may love our sister for her brilliance,” said Avill, “but all the other Rito see is weak bloodlines in our clan. She will never be considered marriageable.”

“Do you say such horrible things to Ithi?” Kyvoro asked as Avill’s harsh words landed.

“Most of the time she says them to me.”

“I don’t want to marry Misa,” Kyvoro repeated, remembering why they were here.

“Alright. Is there someone I can ask about on your behalf?”

“Must this be done right away?” Kyvoro hissed, his insides in knots.

“You’re not quite of marriageable age, but you should have an agreement in place for next summer. If you wait too long you may find yourself without many choices.”

“Can I take a moment to decide at least?” asked Kyvoro.

Kyvoro—like all of the novice warriors of his cohort—had learned about the meeting about their futures after the fact. The Elder, Nasoli, had made sure to hold it while they were training at the Flight Range to counter as much resistance to the idea as possible. 

“Certainly,” Avill said, though it sounded as though he did not relish relinquishing power over his brother’s future.

“Goodnight,” Kyvoro bid him.

As he was about to walk away, Avill grabbed his upper wing and pulled him in close. Kyvoro stiffened as his brother’s beak brushed his braid.

“Don’t take too long...people are talking.”

Kyvoro turned his head in alarm to stare at his brother.

“About what?” he hissed.

“You and Akarth’s son.”

“ _What?_ ”

“If you feel inclined towards males...don’t let it be Genik. You don’t want to cross Akarth.”

Kyvoro could see the real fear in Avill’s eyes. Did people really think that something was going on between them besides training?

“You have nothing to worry about,” grumbled Kyvoro, pulling his wing from his brother’s grip.

“Just be careful.”

Kyvoro fretted all the way back to the roost he shared with his sister, walking quickly past Akarth’s roost, though the warrior was out on patrol that night. He had heard the rumour that Akarth had dispatched Tukoh without even flinching, and he knew from Genik’s stories that Akarth’s anger was silent and severe.

As he climbed into his hammock, Kyvoro still felt unsettled, his momentum setting the hammock swinging into his sister’s. She stirred irately beside him, her eyelids half-closed over her cloudy eyes.

“Oh baby brother,” Ithi threatened. “It’s a good thing I wasn’t sleeping.”

“Sorry,” said Kyvoro, turning on his side and holding his folded blanket against his chest.

Ithi was much closer to Avill’s age than Kyvoro’s, but she had never grown much taller than a fledgling and could hardly see more than shades of bright and dark. Between them, Kyvoro’s siblings had effectively replaced his parents upon their deaths. He was grateful for their care, truly, but now that he was grown, he wished they would treat him as one of them rather than a child.

“So what did Avill have to say?” her tone betraying her obvious knowledge of what had transpired.

“Sounds as though you already know...are you two planning my future behind my back?” he asked miserably.

“Not _planning_ ,” she said.

“I don’t want to court. I have nothing to offer,” Kyvoro told her flatly.

“I attended the Elder’s meeting,” said Ithi. “If you don’t choose a wife they’ll find one for you.”

“You didn’t attend. You were eavesdropping.” 

“Well, my presence tends to go ignored in such gatherings; they think because I can’t see them, they don’t need to see me.”

“No one can compel me to marry against my will.”

“Perhaps not, but I doubt even your stubbornness will deter Nasoli. She will see this generation married and procreating if it kills her...given her age, it might,” said Ithi wickedly.

“Why are they taking such an aggressive stance on this?” he asked, squirming in his hammock, unable to get comfortable.

“I’m sure you remember that little incident where half of our population died?” she needled him acerbically.

“Yes, Ithi, no one has forgotten the Collapse.”

“They call it ‘rebuilding the flock’,” she told him as if he were a particularly slow child.

“I’m not ready for this,” Kyvoro breathed raggedly, covering his face with his wings.

“Avill married at your age,” shrugged Ithi.

“Avill was wildly in love with Osah and had already inherited our father’s craft! I can’t even stand anyone to be in my wingspan and I’m not a fully fledged warrior yet!”

“I’m sorry, I can’t save you from this,” said Ithi, stretching her tiny frame to set his hammock swinging with a shove from her foot.

“Well, thanks for your help,” he muttered, turning away from her and clutching his blanket tight.

“What are sisters for?”

\---

Kyvoro had been tentatively trying to find a mate for the past moon, but all of the women his age seemed to already have arrangements in place. He cursed himself for not foreseeing this. The possibility that he would be bound to a life with Misa was becoming startlingly real. He did not have any particular love for Misa, but he found that it was a life with Cosoth hovering over them which he most feared.

Late one night, Kyvoro stood watch at the foot of the village, his mind preoccupied with the terrifying possibilities, when he heard someone approaching from the boardwalk. He quickly turned, his feathered spear raised, and met the unimpressed gaze of the lone female warrior in his cohort.

“Well done,” said Lodli humourlessly as she pushed aside the point of his spear with her wing.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Clearly, though that is the one thing you’re supposed to be doing right now.”

“I’m a little distracted with the...whole thing about finding a mate,” he confessed.

“Because you prefer Genik’s company,” she said knowingly.

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” he complained, his skin grew hot beneath his feathers in his agitation.

“It’s alright, he’s not a hatchling or anything. He’s just a little slow to grow into his plumage.”

“Can we stop talking about this?” asked Kyvoro, digging his fingers into his forehead.

“I’m here to relieve you anyway, so...”

“Thanks,” he muttered as he turned to leave.

“Misa thinks she’s going to marry you if it kills her,” remarked Lodli, apropos of nothing.

“If she tries it might actually kill me,” said Kyvoro as he stared out into the darkness.

He covered his beak with his wing when he realized he had said his thoughts aloud, his heart hammering beneath his breast. Lodli, however, seemed unfazed by his dark admission.

“That, I believe,” she intoned.

“I can’t imagine what she sees in me.”

“Well, she thinks your the best-looking of the bunch,” offered Lodli. “Or so she says.”

Hearing that left Kyvoro unsettled and her shifted uncomfortably and they stood in silence; Kyvoro was always much better at holding silences than breaking them.

“Kyvoro, what do you enjoy?” she asked him as the silence grew awkward.

“Solitude,” he said without thinking.

“I always knew you were the serious type.”

“Just...prone to overthinking things,” he admitted.

“That’s not a quality I usually associate with warriors.”

“It’s not usually considered a quality.”

“I think it would be generous to say that Nekk, Fyrth, and Ralazo share anything more than a single mind between them.”

“You’re not asking this on behalf of Misa are you?” Kyvoro asked suspiciously.

“No. We don’t really get on.”

Kyvoro leaned on his spear; perhaps this was the opening he was looking for.

“What do you enjoy...outside of tearing apart lizalfos?” he asked.

“I don’t enjoy that; it’s work,” she said sardonically. “bBut, if I had time just to myself...I’d just read everything. I’ve heard there are Hylian books in some of the ruins in Tabantha...I image they’re fascinating.”

“Perhaps we might find some one day,” said Kyvoro absently.

“What, the two us?”

Realizing the implication, Kyvoro stammered out a hasty explanation. 

“We’ll be full warriors by next summer. They’re granted the privilege of travel across the region,” he said, hoping to cover his faux pas.

Lodli’s eyes seemed strangely bright as she pointed out his error.

“Would it not be strange for two who are not married to one another to travel off to dangerous places together?”

“We’re warriors; there is brotherhood in that,” he attempted. “It would be no different to travelling with Nekk.”

“You forget, I’m not a brother...and Nekk is my betrothed.”

“Oh...I’m afraid I missed your declaration,” said Kyvoro, embarrassment descending once more upon him.

“We haven’t yet made it; we still await the elder’s approval,” she said.

“Might I ask you something personal?”

“You can ask...but I maintain the right to not answer.”

“You and Nekk,” he asked as tactfully as he could. “Was this a decision the two of you came to on your own?”

“We weren’t arranged without our agreement,” said Lodli. “Though our parents played an oversized part in ensuring that we would have time together to come to such an arrangement.”

“My siblings have been overly involved in the decision as well,” sighed Kyvoro.

“Really though...the only decision I would make—if I could—would be not to marry,” said Lodli glumly.

“Really?”

“I don’t want to give up the freedom of being a warrior to sit and brood.”

“You wouldn’t do it alone,” Kyvoro pointed out.

“I don’t want to do it at all—well, I suppose if Misa gets her way, you’ll be at it soon enough, too. She wants pretty hatchlings as soon as possible.”

Kyvoro sucked in a panicked breath. He had been so focused the thought of marriage in itself he hadn’t even thought of the full purpose in all of these hurried arrangements. Lodli’s breath escaped her in a poorly-hidden laugh.

“Kyvoro, I’ve seen you take down two bokoblins in one shot without even flinching. Don’t tell me this marriage thing scares you that much.”

“That was a very lucky shot,” he said, clutching his spear as he tried to calm his breathing.

“If it makes you feel any better...everyone seems to feel this way a little bit.”

“How do you know that?”

“Just because male warriors don’t talk to each other doesn’t mean they don’t talk to me.”

“I shall remember that if I am ever in need information,” said Kyvoro, turning to leave.

“Alright, but it’ll cost you,” Lodli called after him as he climbed the stairs to the village.

**Avill**

Avill watched as his brother paced restlessly in his roost. The summer solstice would soon be upon them and Kyvoro had made no decisions about whom he might wish to court. The decision had been taken away from him now, as all the women of his age had made agreements—save one. Kyvoro picked at his mottled-grey feathers anxiously and Avill grabbed his hand to stop him doing damage to his wing.

“You haven’t done that since you were a kid,” said Avill as Kyvoro yanked his wing back. “Is Misa really so bad?”

“Have you met our brother? Anyone would be bad,” chimed Ithi.

Their sister sat on the floor, feeling the blade of a feathered edge between her fingers before running a whetstone along the edge. Ithi’s plumage fell somewhere between Avill’s darkest black and Kyvoro’s stormy grey. When she stood at full height, Avill had to admit she was rather closer to Harth’s height than his own.

“Are you planning to stab someone?” Avill pressed her.

“What’s a poor runt like me to do for trade around here?” she said in mock wretchedness.

“I need to hear that you aren’t intent on stabbing anyone.”

“I’m only conditioning blades,” she said with a wicked smile. “They let me do it because they feel sorry for me.”

“I always tell you to come craft bows again,” said Avill irately.

“Hm. Don’t fancy it,” she dismissed him. “Besides, it’s Kyvoro we need to worry about...unless you’ve finally found someone for me?”

“Kyvoro, we need to be on our way,” Avill insisted, ignoring Ithi.

Instead of leaving the roost with Avill, Kyvoro crouched on the floorboards beside Ithi and wrapped his wings around his body with a pained expression.

“Tell them I’m ill,” he insisted.

“You’re not ill, it’s nerves,” said Avill.

Today, Avill drew heavily from that well of patience he had built up over years parenting first his brother and then his own son. He was sickened that Kyvoro had become merely a tool to help repopulate the village—a task that Rito well past their own fertile years were conspicuously managing. 

Avill understood the dire situation they found themselves in, but he could not imagine having the choice of with whom he would spend his life taken from him. Though, he supposed he ought to be careful; he was still young enough to be set up with a warrior’s widow, even if remarriage was not the norm in Rito custom.

Avill crouched in front of his brother and wrapped his hand around the back of his neck, trying to calm him. Kyvoro shrugged off Avill’s wing and stood, still holding his stomach. With Kyvoro in such a state, Avill was hardly looking forward to appearing before the Elder, but they had awaited the decision on whether or not the match with Misa might proceed for long enough. Avill reached out to fix his brother’s unbound braid and Kyvoro stepped back, brushing him off with his wing.

“Stop touching me,” said Kyvoro sullenly.

“You’re nearly a fully fledged warrior,” Avill scolded. “You can’t appear before the Elder looking as though you’ve just rolled out of your hammock.”

“I don’t care. Let’s get this over with,” said Kyvoro.

Kyvoro pushed ahead of Avill, his fists clenched as he walked up the boardwalk. If Misa wanted to marry his brother so badly, she was about to learn just how moody he could be, Avill thought uncharitably. By the time they reached the elder’s roost, Kyvoro had managed to straighten his clothes, if not his braids.

Misa and Cosoth were already there, Cosoth looking impatient with a tawny wing resting firmly on her daughter’s shoulder. Avill risked a glance at Kyvoro, who had suppressed his anxious energy beneath a dark scowl. His unbound braid added to his air of instability and Avill wished he had been more insistent about Kyvoro’s appearance.

“Avill, Kyvoro,” said Nasoli. “We were concerned you wouldn’t make it.”

“Only a minor delay, Elder,” said Avill, politely ignoring the passive-aggression.

“Perhaps let’s avoid those...at my age everything begins to feel like borrowed time.”

“Our apologies.”

“Kaneli, you have have traced Kyvoro and Misa’s bloodlines?” 

“Yes Elder,” he said. “Sadly, we cannot approve this union as there are too many common ancest—”

Kaneli was cut off by Kyvoro’s relieved cachinnation. Avill turned to see Kyvoro, his wing over his beak and his eyes wide with embarrassment as he realized what he had done.

“How dare you laugh!” snapped Cosoth.

“He didn’t mean it,” said Avill, trying to calm the situation.

“As though you’re any better, putting us off at every opportunity,” Cosoth fumed, turning her attention to Avill.

“Cosoth—” attempted Avill in a conciliatory tone.

“You should consider yourself lucky; not many would be willing to overlook your family’s obvious... _shortcomings_ ,” said Cosoth, her eyes narrowed at Kyvoro and Avill.

“Mother,” groaned Misa, covering her face in embarrassment.

“How dare—”

Avill felt Kyvoro bristling beside him and held out a wing to remind him to keep his temper in check.

“We thank you for your consideration,” said Avill, “and we hope that you find a match for Misa that meets your exacting standards.”

Avill turned and pushed Kyvoro back to the boardwalk with a sharp jab of his wing. As Kyvoro turned, Avill gripped him with a firm hand on the back of his neck as he directed him down the boardwalk. Once away from the elder’s roost Kyvoro shoved Avill away.

“How can you let her talk about Ithi like that?” Kyvoro snapped, incensed.

“Settle down,” Avill told him crossly, “you got what you wanted.”

“So I am free to live my life on my own?” Kyvoro asked as they resumed their walk down the boardwalk.

“You’re free to not marry next summer...the Elder will no doubt find you a mate as soon as someone suitable is of age.”

Kyvoro let out an aggravated noise.

“None of us gets what we believe we deserve,” Avill told him.

“You married for love!”

“And I lost her within two years.”

The bitterness in his tone never faded when he was reminded of Osah. He had so desperately hoped that the chick she left him in her passing would resemble her, but Harth had only inherited his mother’s soft green eyes. Small though the resemblance was, in time, Avill had become grateful for that tiny miracle.

“I’m sorry,” huffed Kyvoro, as they walked down the boardwalk to Kyvoro and Ithi’s roost.

“For what?”

“All of this...you shouldn’t have to take care of me anymore.”

“I fear what would happen if I should stop,” sighed Avill.

“I imagine you will watch me stumble through whatever it is with mounting frustration until the urge to interfere overwhelms you.”

Avill grasped his brother’s wing to pull him to a stop and turned to face him.

“Do you really wish me to leave you alone in this?” asked Avill,.

“If I say ‘yes,’ will you?”

Avill sighed in resignation. Though he was still youthfully skinny, Avill had to look up slightly to meet his younger brother’s gaze. Unravelled braid notwithstanding, Kyvoro looked the part of an adult.

“I’ll try,” Avill conceded. 

“What a mother hen you are.”

Kyvoro struggled as Avill wrapped a wing around his shoulders and pressed his forehead against his cheek.

“I can’t help my nature,” Avill said.

“Though I wish you would refrain from these expressions of brotherly love,” Kyvoro said, finally wrenching away.

“So few have brothers; let us count ourselves lucky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: Kyvoro is carrying a lot of what I have written so far because he is in the age-group that is seeing a lot of the changes in custom pushed upon them and because of where he is socially situated and the roles that he has/was implied to have in ‘Age of Intolerance’. That being said, I will slowly introduce more familiar POVs (certainly Teba, probably Saki, Harth and Amali) as I go along.
> 
> I am always looking for feedback. It helps me to know which beats readers like me to hit, which characters they like to see more of, which questions I haven’t adequately answered. Feedback was responsible for the entirety of Chapters 21 and 24 of ‘Age of Intolerance’ and this fic owes some serious debt to those chapters.


	4. On Women Warriors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chronicle entry: _Late Summer, 79 years since the Calamity. Most of our youth have settled into agreements, and already one marriage is set to proceed this autumn. However, this is the second consecutive year in over a decade that no eggs have hatched. I can only assume that this has something to to with the traumatic events of the Collapse still weighing on the minds of those who remain. Nasoli has put it to me to search the records and find ideas for how we might encourage procreation._

_Late Summer, 79 years since the Calamity. Most of our youth have settled into agreements, and already one marriage is set to proceed this autumn. However, this is the second consecutive year in over a decade that no eggs have hatched. I can only assume that this has something to to with the traumatic events of the Collapse still weighing on the minds of those who remain. Nasoli has put it to me to search the records to find how we might encourage procreation._

**Gotheli**

The wind from the basin whistled past the Flight Range landing with more force than usual. The sound turned to a howl as the updraft met the cold mountain air that blew down from the Hebra mountain range. Though the pleasant summer sun warmed the floorboards, roofs and boardwalks in Rito Village, in the microclimate of the Hebra foothills, snow drifted softly from the pale grey sky.

Gotheli set down at the Flight Range landing and lit the fire beneath the cooking pot. She was a warrior as both her parents had been before her. Her skill with the bow was unparalleled in her cohort and she was hardly a slouch with the sword and spear. She had been training the fledglings on the basics of tactical flight and weaponry for several years. Naturally—with such qualifications—when she petitioned Usli to take over training the novices when he became First Warrior, she expected that she would be first in line for such an esteemed position.

She had set to preparing the Flight Range for the first lesson with the newest group of fledglings when she heard the clatter of talons on the landing. She turned to see the severe expression and fawn plumage of her husband as he entered the structure.

“Eloza,” she said, “I’m expecting the fledglings—”

“I know,” he said, resting his wings on her shoulders.

“Has something happened?” she asked, concerned by his stance.

Eloza sighed, gently digging his fingers beneath her feathers.

“What?” Gotheli pressed at his hesitation.

“Usli has asked me to take over training of the novices,” he admitted reluctantly.

“I wasn’t aware that you were interested in the role,” she said, her heart surging with betrayal as she turned and broke his grip.

“I’m not. This has the Elder’s feathers in it,” he said. “They don’t want you in this role.”

“Why would the Elder concern herself with my trajectory as a warrior?” asked Gotheli.

“We haven’t...had any eggs since...”

Eloza trailed off uncomfortably, his grief still as visible and visceral as hers. Gotheli did her best not to recall that night while waking; it was bad enough that in her nightmares she was always trapped beneath a heavy beam and surrounded by bits of eggshell.

“It’s not the Elder’s concern,” Gotheli repeated angrily.

“You can’t have failed to notice that Nasoli has been trying to get everyone settled as quickly as possible,” he said.

“We’re settled.”

“It was suggested that...perhaps you shouldn’t risk yourself taking the novices on their patrols.”

“Has someone said something to you?” she demanded, seeing his uneasy expression.

“Kaneli...”

“Of course, Kaneli,” she sighed. “He doesn’t have to worry about becoming egg-bound, or brooding, or—”

“Gotheli, I’m on your side,” Eloza quickly assured her, “but there has been more and more talk of creating an atmosphere _conducive to reproduction_.”

“And grief be damned? Ambition be damned?”

Eloza sighed, his hawkish features drawn in distress.

“Are you going to accept?” Gotheli asked him.

“Usli’s told me that if I don’t, the role will go to Akarth,” he said uncomfortably.

“Akarth? He would flay the feathers from the novices! He refuses to even train his own son!”

“They know that...and they know that I would do whatever I could to ensure Akarth did not damage our future warriors.”

“Is Akarth even interested in such a thing?”

“Who can say what goes on in that elixir-addled mind?” said Eloza caustically.

Gotheli sighed in disgust.

“Then you must accept,” she told him reluctantly.

“I hate this,” he said, pacing the floorboards.

“Eloza, I trained those novices when they were barely as tall as their swallow bows. You must stand in the way of this, even if it is a feint. I can’t bear to see all of my hard work wasted if Akarth takes over their training.”

“I know,” he sighed.

They stood in uncomfortable silence, the crackling flame beneath the cooking pot and the howling of the wind filling the space where they had talked. Gotheli sighed deeply, trying to calm her frustrations—it was hardly Eloza’s fault that Usli had become so pliable. Glancing out toward the village, she saw five figures incoming.

“My charges approach,” she observed.

“I should go,” said Eloza, brushing his beak against hers before taking off into the updraft.

Skoss landed with his own daughter, Antilli, as well as Teba, Harth, and Amali. The four had been born within a few seasons of each other and were beginning to gain some height along with the beginnings of their adult flight feathers. By the end of the summer they would be tall enough to begin training with swallow bows

“Welcome,” said Gotheli, suppressing her anger, “today we’re going to work on some flying drills to get used to the Flight Range.”

She saw Skoss gesturing for a private word as he hopped down to the snow-covered ground beneath the Flight Range lodge.

“But first we need to make sure we’re dressed for the weather. I’d like everyone to sit down around the fire and when I return we’ll talk about what kind of clothing is appropriate for the Flight Range.”

She jumped down from the ladder to join Skoss on the rocky ground.

“Amali isn’t supposed to be here,” he told her.

“Of course she is,” said Gotheli. “She’s from a family of warriors.”

“They’re changing the rules,” Skoss scowled. “They’re trying to stop female admission to warrior ranks.”

“Why isn’t Antilli being excluded?”

“Because Senla is fighting with the Elder as we speak.”

“Goddess,” cursed Gotheli. “This is all happening at once. Is Akarth aware his daughter isn’t supposed to be here?”

“I’m not prepared to be the one to ask him.”

Gotheli cursed again under her breath. It felt as though the world was closing in around her.

“I’ll train them both until someone drags me from the Flight Range,” Gotheli promised.

“I suspected you would. Now I have to support my wife’s fight,” he said glancing bitterly back at the village as though he could see those who stood in his way. “If Avill’s dopey kid can have this honour then my daughters are just as entitled...Amali too, for that matter.”

Skoss took off and Gotheli returned to the lodge to see to her charges. She let her growing anger fuel her determination not to fail them.

**Kyvoro**

Kyvoro once again stood evening guard at the base of the village. The summer day had cooled as the sun set, and Kyvoro breathed in the fresh air as he walked along the patrol path. The sound of wings heralded an arrival, and he turned to see Lodli touch down, the moonlight glinting off her dark red plumage.

“It’s a bit early for a replacement,” said Kyvoro as she approached.

“Fyrth is your replacement tonight,” she corrected him. “Use your eyes, Kyvoro, I’m not even in my armour.”

“So you aren’t,” he realized as he took in short cloth top and saw where her feathers turned from red to creamy white on her abdomen.

“That wasn’t an invitation to stare.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, averting his gaze. “What’s the occasion for your visit?”

“I just escaped from a meal with Nekk and his mother,” she said.

“Was it awful?”

“Not awful...she’s pretty enthusiastic about the prospect of hatchlings...but, to be honest, I feel a sick about it.”

“I think I can understand that,” he muttered.

“Do you? You escaped your arrangement by some stroke of divine grace,” she snapped.

“I got out of marrying Misa, not marriage itself,” said Kyvoro dryly. “The Elder has suggested I might wait until Amali comes of age...but the prospect of joining Akarth’s family might actually be more terrifying than joining Cosoth’s.”

“Amali is my sister’s age. That’ll be a long wait.”

“Maybe they’ll let me go off and find someone. I’ve heard rumours that Tropical Rito are quite beautiful.”

“Is that all you’re looking for? Beauty?” she scoffed.

“I’m just making conversation,” said Kyvoro, flustered as Lodli picked at his every statement.

He thought by Lodli’s tone that she might be jealous, but couldn’t tell her how fierce and beautiful he thought she was—what if Nekk found out?

“Your conversational skills aren’t exactly sparkling,” she pointed out.

“And yet, here you are. Not with your betrothed, but the village guard.”

“Yeah,” she said toying with something in her hand.

The silence stretched on between them as it sometimes did; Kyvoro never really knew how to start speaking again. He was usually more comfortable with silence, but when the silence stretched on with Lodli, Kyvoro’s insides began to squirm.

“You know all the changes Usli is trying to make to the warriors?” Lodli asked, breaking the silence at last.

Kyvoro nodded; Ithi kept him abreast of every development in the village that reached her keen hearing.

“They wanted to stop me going on the retreat in the autumn,” Lodli told him.

“If you don’t go on the retreat you can’t become a full warrior.”

“I know...they’ve begun to discuss whether or not women should serve as warriors at all.”

“Oh,” Kyvoro breathed.

“But my mother fought them, my father too...I suppose they decided that it seemed a waste after all of my training to cut me out,” she shrugged.

“So you are still allowed to come?” he asked hopefully.

“As it stands, yes.”

“That’s good to hear.”

Kyvoro tried to hide how much he was looking forward to spending time together at the retreat. He did not feel particularly close to the other novices in his cohort—not since the ones who had been lost in the Collapse anyway—but he enjoyed Lodli’s company more than he would admit aloud.

“Right...then I can start laying eggs right after I wed Nekk in the spring,” she sighed covering her face with her wing.

“I’m sure it won’t be like that,” said Kyvoro hopefully. “Nekk doesn’t exactly strike me as eager.”

“Thanks for saying so.”

“I hate that you’re so sad,” Kyvoro blurted.

“What?”

“I mean...I wish this wasn’t...I don’t know what I mean.”

“Well, the sentiment is there,” she said with a half smile.

He sighed in relief.

“Here,” she said.

She took his hand in both of hers and pressed something small into it. His head was abuzz from the contact as she wrapped her hands around his.

“See you next time,” she said, taking off.

Kyvoro opened his hand. He wasn’t entirely sure what he had been expecting, but he was perplexed to find a fang from a wolf. Was their some secret meaning to this that he wasn’t aware of? He pondered the gift until Fyrth came to relive him, recalling the warm feeling that had come over him as Lodli held his hand between hers. 

He climbed the stairs back to the village and reported his quiet watch to Usli before he returned home for the night. 

When he arrived at his roost, he found Ithi sitting at the back of the dimly lit roost, absently playing with her braid as she thought to herself.

“What are you doing?” Kyvoro asked as he worked at the fastenings on his cuirass. 

“I have a great many things to do tomorrow,” she said. “I’m accounting for them.”

Kyvoro removed his leather armour and carefully tucked it away. He stretched as he crossed the room to sit down across from his sister.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked her, placing the wolf’s tooth in her hand.

She ran her fingertips over it, turning it over and over in the featherless patches on her hands which she had rubbed bald from feeling her way through life.

“I’ve never held anything like this,” she said, passing it back to Kyvoro.

“I think it’s a wolf’s tooth.”

“Did you kill a wolf?” Ithi asked with a sudden intensity, squeezing his wing.

“No,” he huffed, trying not to laugh at her expression.

“Why would you have this?”

“Does it mean anything if someone gives you something like this?” he asked carefully.

“Perhaps that your friends need to offer better gifts.”

“I mean, do you know...is it symbolic?”

“Who gave this to you?” she asked suspiciously.

“I can’t say.”

“A secret suitor,” she grinned.

“No.”

“Gifts are usually symbolic of friendship and love in and of themselves. The old song says _‘bring your love a sprig of cool safflina; set your love a diamond in their bow’_.”

“But nothing about a wolf’s tooth.”

“Perhaps your mystery suitor is trying to demonstrate their prowess?”

“Not a suitor,” Kyvoro reiterated.

“Though it is rather a masculine gift,” said Ithi mischievously.

“I don’t know what your implying,” said Kyvoro, standing and unbinding his leg-wraps.

“I think you do.”

Kyvoro refused to give Ithi the satisfaction of a reaction. He set aside his dusty leg-wraps and pulled at the leather binding that had come loose on one of his braids, annoyed that he would have to fix it again.

“Are you going to sleep or are you just going to sit there?” he asked his sister.

“I think I’ll just sit here until I’m ready,” she said.

“Suit yourself,” shrugged Kyvoro, settling into his hammock.

**Kaneli**

The barest hint of autumn crispness ruffled through Kaneli’s flight feathers as he glided over the lake. He had just escaped a meeting with Nasoli and Usli, and somehow, he’d found himself the barer of unpopular news. Nasoli so rarely delivered these things on her own, and Usli feared his already tenuous popularity among the warriors might be waning amidst recent developments. 

Kaneli had a more pragmatic view of bearing such news—he had no reason to worry about whether or not the villagers were happy with him. Though he could not help but feel that he was being badly used, he accepted the necessity of this, and all of the changes which the village was enacting in the hopes of self-preservation.

Kaneli arrived at the Flight Range to find Gotheli preparing for her lesson. She swooped in a helix around the stack at the centre of the Flight Range, hitting her targets with an unmatched accuracy. She had never needed much encouragement in that regard, reflected Kaneli. Gotheli was a motivated warrior and had spent her youth besting those in her cohort, including Tukoh. It would be a loss to the warriors when her tenure came to an end.

“Gotheli,” Kaneli greeted her as she lit on the landing. “Good to see you’ve kept up your skills.”

“My skills are still in use,” Gotheli said standoffishly. 

“Yes, of course,” said Kaneli, hoping he might address another matter before he broke the news. “I’ve come to speak with you on the matter of Teba.”

“I can speak only to Osol on the matter of her son,” Gotheli dismissed him, not bothering to to look up as she inspected the half-sized swallow bows the fledglings used.

“I think you know that Osol is in no position to speak about Teba’s future as a warrior, still mired by her grief over Tukoh as she is.”

“Please make your point, Kaneli,” she pressed.

“Teba is well advanced compared to his peers.”

“I don’t deny that. No doubt Tukoh oversaw his training from an early age.”

“And I have taken over that responsibility. Surely, he can be moved to the next stage of training.”

“Teba is advanced, it’s true,” she agreed, “but he’s far too small to train with Genik and Toloth...and I think he’d miss Harth.”

“Teba has no space in his life for such sentiment,” Kaneli objected, irritated that Teba continued to find friendship among the worst of his peers—Genik and Toloth would have been preferable in that regard.

“I understand that you did not begin training with your peers from such a young age,” she said with a waspish passivity. “The bonds formed between warriors are important in maintaining trust on the battlefield, and this trust must be formed early.”

“Trust is important,” Kaneli agreed, “but skill is more important.”

“I won’t do this,” she asserted. “You cannot interfere in their training like this, regardless of your position or your favour with the Elder.”

“I can if I believe you are not living up to the requirements of this role,” said Kaneli.

“Don’t threaten me,” said Gotheli stepping in close, her eyes steely. “You may have made Usli your pawn, but you are no longer in command of me.”

Kaneli took a step back to defuse the situation. It was a shame that Gotheli’s eggs had been destroyed in the Collapse; she was bound to have strong offspring.

“You may of course conduct training as you wish,” Kaneli conceded, “but you should not expect to see Amali in class today. Akarth has conceded that the Flight Range is no place for his only daughter.”

He left Gotheli to rest with that news as he leapt into the updraft.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was a bit of a short one, but it was like trying to get blood from a stone (somehow this always happens around chapter 4 or 5 for me and then it recovers). The following chapters are lengthier, more action-packed and really start to dig into more character stuff, ritual etc. 
> 
> For those of you who have left kudos and comments: thank you so very much! I see the hits jump after I post and I know you're out there and it makes me glad that I can share this with others.
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


	5. The Retreat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Early Autumn, 79 years since the Calamity. As this cohort of novices sets out upon their retreat, I find I am painfully reminded of Tukoh at the same age. Though expressions of excitement were not in his nature, there was a brightness to him as he set out to meet his dearest ambition._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright fair warning, there is one particularly nasty injury coming up, but I try not to linger over the description too long.

_Early Autumn, 79 years since the Calamity. As this cohort of novices sets out upon their retreat, I find I am painfully reminded of Tukoh at the same age. Though expressions of excitement were not in his nature, there was a brightness to him as he set out to meet his dearest ambition. In these moments, the memory of my protégé so overwhelms me so that I forget the purpose of these entries. It will be to our benefit to have the first new cohort of warriors fledged since the Collapse; we are in desperate need of such reinforcements to keep at bay the monsters which encroach upon our territory. Already, our hunts yield less than in the last few years, and our stores grow worryingly low._

**Kyvoro**

The retreat was a three day test of the novice’s abilities before they could be granted the title of warrior. Cohorts of novices were taken to the Hebra wilds where they would face challenges and—most importantly—clear swaths of monsters from their dens and colonies. 

Kyvoro had been looking forward to this challenge since Avill’s retreat. He had hoped that Usli might still accompany them, as the First Warrior had spent the last few years training them, but Eloza had fully taken over the role of novice trainer. Kyvoro had no conflict with Eloza, but he often wondered if Eloza’s heart was not really in the training; he was pleasant enough as he ran their drills, but he did not seem to provide as much guidance as Usli had.

As Kyvoro packed for the retreat, he heard someone enter the roost behind him. He turned to find Avill and Harth. Approaching him, his brother held out a parcel wrapped in a patterned blanket.

“I have a blanket,” Kyvoro told Avill as he handed the bundle to him.

“You’re welcome to keep the blanket if you wish, but it’s what’s inside that you really ought to have.”

Kyvoro unwrapped it to find a leather cuirass inlaid with a metal chest-plate. The leather was well worn and bore a few nicks from where it had protected the wearer from attack. The chest-plate was a little tarnished with age, though it looked as though Avill had tried to restore its shine. As Kyvoro squinted at the metal, he could see it was etched with the squared iconography of wings in flight.

“This was Dad’s,” said Kyvoro, searching his memory for a time when their father had worn this before the night they had watched vigil over his still body.

“I had it reconditioned,” Avill told him. “You should have it,” 

“You’re the eldest, surely it should go to you.”

“Turns out Dad was a lot taller than I am. Try it on.”

Kyvoro set the cuirass aside as he unfastened the straps of his own unadorned leather armour and pulled it off. As he fastened the buckles through the stiff leather of the old cuirass, Kyvoro felt strangely secure. Avill smiled a little sadly, resting his wing on his son’s head as Harth squirmed where he stood.

“You look like him,” said Avill.

Kyvoro shook his head, unable to respond. What little he remembered of his father was the palest silver, dappled feathers, far lighter than any of his children. Kyvoro couldn’t imagine that he bore much resemblance. 

He was spared having to come up with a response by Ithi’s arrival. She walked along the boardwalk and smiled contentedly to herself, one wing on the handrail to guide her way home.

“Ithi, you’re late,” Avill admonished her.

“I’m here aren’t I? I would never miss our baby brother’s big departure!” she said, reaching out for Kyvoro’s wing.

Kyvoro rested the tip of his wing gently on her shoulder and she held it in her hand.

“Avill, did you give it to him?” asked Ithi.

“Fortunately, yes, you haven’t ruined the surprise,” said Avill.

Ithi tugged on Kyvoro’s wing and he bent over so that she could touch the metal plate. The smile of familiarity that crossed her face made Kyvoro think she must have done this often as a child as their father held her. Kyvoro’s memories of him were so few and so fractured that he was momentarily jealous of his much older siblings for the time they’d had with him. It was hardly the first time he had felt such envy.

“Does it fit well?” she asked him.

“Very well.”

“Dad, can I go?” complained Harth, clearly bored.

“Go where?” asked Avill.

“To the salmon pond with Antilli and Saki.”

“Alright. Don’t be late to eat,” warned Avill as Harth raced from the roost.

“I should go, too,” said Kyvoro. “I was to be at the Flight Range already.”

Ithi still held his wing—as often was her habit—and she once more pulled him down to her level. As he knelt, she placed her hands on his face and stroked his feathers.

“I know you’re excited about this,” she said, “but be ever so careful...you still need to be able to hunt when you return.”

“Can’t you just say something nice?” asked Kyvoro as he rested his wings on her shoulders.

“You’ll be wonderful,” she said, giving his cheek a little slap.

As Kyvoro stood, Avill wrapped his wing around the back of his neck and pressed their foreheads together.

“Be careful,” said Avill. “If you’re badly injured, you need only send word and I will be there.”

Kyvoro shrugged out of his brother’s grip, overwhelmed by his brother’s protectiveness. He knew that novices sometimes returned from the retreat with serious injuries, but Kyvoro did not intend to be among them.

“I’ll come back in one piece,” he promised.

Kyvoro lifted his pack and left the roost to head up the boardwalk to Revali’s Landing. He had to suppress his groan as he saw Nekk coming down from the elder’s roost. The reached they landing at the same time and Kyvoro nodded to the russet feathered Rito.

“I see you’re late as well,” said Nekk as he glanced at Kyvoro’s cuirass, “and wearing old armour.”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” said Kyvoro, checking that his weapons and pack were secure, “but this was my father’s.”

“Yes of course. My father left me a trade, and your father left you a cuirass from the time of Revali.”

“I’ve chosen to devote my life to being a warrior. If I felt so inclined, my brother would apprentice me where I could learn the intricacies of a _craft_. But enjoy patching holes in trousers,” Kyvoro said dismissively as he leapt into the wind.

Before he had even crossed Lake Totori he felt something catch in his belt, nearly setting him into a tailspin. He righted himself as Nekk leaned in close to his face, his talons scraping sharply into Kyvoro’s hip.

“Do not speak to my betrothed alone, or I will have you both hauled before the Elder,” Nekk threatened before he released Kyvoro roughly and advanced to the Flight Range. 

Kyvoro’s heart was still pounding as he landed shortly after Nekk. The russet Rito fixed him with a glare as Kyvoro moved to stand near the railing in the lodge. Eloza was already inside with Lodli, Fyrth and Ralazo.

“No time for idleness,” said Eloza, handing them each rations and supplies that they were to add to their packs. “We want to make sure out campsite is cleared before sundown—Fyrth, your pack is not secured—tomorrow we will commence our drills—Nekk, are you sure you have that? Good—any questions?”

Eloza stood on the landing, the powerful updrafts blowing at his sandstone feathers. When no questions came, he turned.

“Alright, stay together,” Eloza instructed, leaping into the updraft and riding it to the sky with flourish.

They followed after, one by one, the other male warriors vying for position, until Kyvoro stood alone on the landing with Lodli. He held out his wing, gesturing that she might go ahead, and leapt into the wind, trailing after her.

“You needn’t be so courteous. If you want this to be about brotherhood, treat me as a brother rather than a sister,” she said, falling back to fly beside him.

“It might be that your idea of brotherhood is modelled on those three fools ahead of us,” said Kyvoro. “None of them have actual brothers...and you should know that my sister would laugh to hear you say that.”

“Why would she laugh?”

“I’m certainly not treating you as I would treat a sister.”

Lodli stared at him with a crooked smile.

“What?” he asked finally.

“Your armour looks antique...it’s quite fetching.”

Even with the cold wind blowing through his feathers as they flew over the frozen foothills below, Kyvoro’s face burned at Lodli’s compliment.

“Kyvoro, Lodli—keep up!” Eloza called.

Ahead of him, Nekk fixed Kyvoro with a glare to remind him that he would make good on his threat. Kyvoro tried to ignore him. Nekk, Fyrth and Ralazo were all a few seasons older than he was and had never been friendly with him. Before the Collapse, there had been three other novices in their cohort who had been friends to Lodli and Kyvoro, but there were many such tragedies that dreadful night. Who else were he and Lodli left to trust if not each other, Kyvoro thought bitterly.

By the time they had reached the south-west bank of the Hebra Headspring, the sun’s position indicated that the afternoon was well on its way out. They swept the area of monsters, and Eloza set Nekk, Fyrth and Lodli on patrol. Ralazo and Kyvoro were instructed to set camp as Eloza started the fire.

“What’s the matter?” Kyvoro asked as Ralazo looked wistfully at the fire, shivering beneath his puffed feathers.

“Perhaps that hint of tropical blood from my mother’s side,” he said. “aAre you not cold?”

Kyvoro shook his head. Though the wind battered his feathers, Kyvoro couldn’t claim more than a chill. He piled a few rocks around the base of the stick he had tried to drive into the frozen ground as Ralazo tied off the triangle of fabric into an approximation of a tent. The wind blew it over almost immediately.

“Maybe we should try the tree?” suggested Ralazo, pointing at the leafless trees which surrounded them.

“Nekk, Fyrth,” Eloza called into the sky, “you’re charged with finding dinner!”

“We have the tents up,” Ralazo reported, still shivering.

“Ralazo, warm up. Kyvoro, you can go join Lodli on patrol.”

Kyvoro pushed off into flight and caught up with Lodli as she circled above.

“Watching Nekk fish is like a peek into my own future hell,” she said dully.

Kyvoro glanced down at the headspring where it appeared that Nekk and Fyrth had frightened away the fish. After a bit of shouting at one another, Fyrth stalked off to collect mushrooms while Nekk drew his bow over the water.

“So, you’re still not looking forward to marriage, I take it?”

“All of our courting...he thinks he brings so much because he can stitch a garment. He knows nothing of cooking or roost repair. I’m not sure he’s ever read anything longer than the ledger in his mother’s shop. He tries to show off his archery skills and I politely smile and tell him what a good job he’s doing when I could beat him on a broken wing...”

“Lodli...” breathed Kyvoro as he saw the agony this was causing her.

“And the worst part of it all, is I’m now seeing that he’s a gaping vent.”

Kyvoro almost choked at her crude language...not that he wasn’t in agreement of the assessment.

“Lodli, if you marry him, there will be no escape, but you can dissolve your agreement before that happens.”

“I don’t know how,” she said, “his mother’s made it fairly inescapable.”

“What about your parents?” he asked.

“If I asked...my father would help me get out of it, I’m certain...but they would both be disappointed.”

“What’s their disappointment compared to a life of misery?”

“Kyvoro...you got lucky, but it’s only for now. Maybe when Amali’s grown and you marry her you might be happy together, but none of us can avoid this. If I get free of Nekk it’ll only be Toloth or Genik in a few years.”

“At risk of further entrenching the rumours about me...Genik is perfectly kind and very intelligent,” Kyvoro said, not addressing that Lodli hadn’t mentioned him.

“May as well get it over with,” she said glumly. “Perhaps after I hatch a couple of eggs I can take up my bow as a warrior again.”

Kyvoro desperately wished that there was something he could say to stop this course of action. His thoughts were interrupted by Eloza’s whistle, summoning them back to the ground. Nekk had managed to catch two fish, though Kyvoro wondered how many arrows had been lost in the process. Fyrth had found an assortment of mushrooms which he speared onto a sharpened greenwood stick to roast above the fire.

“Nekk, take Fyrth and go collect the arrows along the bank that you’ve wasted,” said Eloza irately.

Kyvoro had to suppress a smile as he thought he heard Fyrth mutter something about Usli never making them do things like that. Perhaps it was just Fyrth—Usli’s clear favourite since they had reached their full heights and graduated to novice—but Eloza did not seem to have such warm feelings for any of them.

Kyvoro sat down beside Ralazo, who still shivered in his blanket near the fire.

“Are you sure you’re well?” Kyvoro asked, hoping at the very least he might improve his relationships with some of the other warriors.

“Less and less sure. I thought that my grandfather’s aversion to the cold was something of a jape. Clearly, in this extreme weather I feel it too.”

“Don’t give in. Khedli awaits your return as a warrior.”

“Knowing that is the only thing keeping me from leaving this exercise,” Ralazo said. “How can we wed if I’m not fully fledged? I’m certain she would call it off if I were—”

“Do you know how many bokoblins are on the eastern shore?” Fyrth hissed to the group as he and Nekk returned with the ice-slicked arrows.

“Thirteen,” said Lodli, from where she was silently conditioning her feathered edge, “and six lizalfos. Shall I tell you what kinds we should expect as well?”

“You’re always so unduly arrogant,” said Fyrth.

“It’s not my fault that you fail to spot the threats that are right before you,” she ridiculed him.

“Fyrth, that’s enough,” said Eloza. “Lodli has shared important tactical information, and rather than fight about it, perhaps you should account for why you were unaware of this when you, too, were sent to fly patrol.”

Kyvoro ignored Nekk as he teased Fyrth. When he had been on patrol, Kyvoro had spotted only half the number of bokoblins, though he supposed Lodli had patrolled for a little longer than he had. As the six of them finished their meal, Eloza claimed first watch, and they drew feathers for second and third watch. When he drew second watch, Kyvoro was unhappy, but accepted the assignment without complaint.

As they bedded down beneath the canvass tents that scarcely blocked the wind, Ralazo shivered away beside him. The wind blew snow about in a growing blizzard, and even Kyvoro was beginning to miss the warmth of the hammock which hung beside his sister’s.

“Ralazo,” said Kyvoro, “I don’t want to put you in a position of ridicule, but it seems you may need this.”

Kyvoro moved a little closer to where Ralazo lay wrapped in his blanket. He spread his own blanket over both of them and pressed his back to Ralazo’s.

“I may have been wrong about you,” shivered Ralazo.

“On what account?”

“I always thought you were arrogant,” said Ralazo, “you never speak to anyone.”

“It’s not my strong suit,” admitted Kyvoro.

“I’m glad you were able to overcome that in this instance.”

Kyvoro could not think of a response to this and just nodded.

“More or less, anyway,” said Ralazo.

Kyvoro laughed a little as he closed his eyes, more tired than he had realized from the arduous day. He drifted off easily with his back to Ralazo’s.

Kyvoro had not been asleep very long when he sat bolt upright at the sound of Eloza’s shrill whistle.

“What’s happening?” asked Ralazo beside him.

“Stalmoblins!” shouted Eloza.

Kyvoro reached beside his bedroll for his bow and blade, only to find that they were missing.

“Where the fuck is my bow?!” cursed Fyrth.

Kyvoro looked up to see that Eloza was standing behind the advancing stalmoblins and not raising a wing to help.

“It’s a test!” yelled Kyvoro. 

Without waiting for anyone else, Lodli grabbed a discarded wooden tent pole and struck one of the stalmoblins repeatedly until its head rolled from its shattered body. Kyvoro grabbed the twisting, flailing arm from the ground and struck at a second stalmoblin until the bones came apart in his grasp. Ralazo caught one of the rolling heads and dashed it repeatedly against a stone until it crumbled. Fyrth collected a dropped bow as he and Nekk battered the third stalmoblin to death.

As the malicious smoke cleared, the five of them stood panting amidst the piles of horns and teeth that remained of the skeletal monsters.

“You took our weapons!” Nekk shouted at Eloza.

“And not one of you awoke,” remarked Eloza. “You’ll get your weapons back when you earn them back.”

“How are we supposed to defend ourselves with a club, a tent pole, and a Hylian bow?” shouted Fyrth.

“Don’t forget the arm, Fyrth,” said Lodli, lifting one of long, writhing limbs.

It was quickly becoming apparent to Kyvoro why so many novices returned home injured from this trial.

“Kyvoro, you drew second watch,” said Eloza, ending their nonsense. “You may have a bow and spear until Fyrth takes his watch.

“This isn’t mine,” said Kyvoro as Eloza handed him a swallow bow that bore his brother’s mark on the tip. “Mine was made by Ithi, and it’s a falcon bow.”

“I didn’t say you could have your own bow,” Eloza told him.

Kyvoro slung the bow on his back and glanced wistfully back where Ralazo had taken the liberty of wrapping himself in both his own and Kyvoro’s blankets. He stared out into the wilds, looking for the telltale glowing eyes of monsters and predators. Though the wind howled through the mountains filling the world with its unyielding scream, Kyvoro’s watch was not nearly so exciting as Eloza’s must have been. When it was Fyrth’s watch, Kyvoro woke him and handed off the bow and spear and went to wrest his blanket back from Ralazo.

**Lodli**

The next morning, the five novices examined the weapons they had piled before them: one swallow bow, one wooden bow of Hylian origin, a feathered spear, and a crude club lashed with dragon bone. They had sharpened the remaining tent pole into a spear after the stalmoblin arms had fallen to dust in the morning light. Eloza had granted them twenty arrows per archer and they were given the task of deciding who would wield each weapon, but were not allowed to claim any for themselves.

“Ralazo,” said Fyrth reluctantly, “you have a strong wing, you should wield the club.”

“Fyrth is the best archer among us,” said Nekk. “Take the swallow bow.”

“Nekk, you’re also an accomplished archer,” returned Fyrth, handing him the Hylian bow.

“I think Lodli should have the Hylian bow,” objected Kyvoro, his expression as dark as usual.

“Oh Lodli, should, should she?” asked Nekk.

“It’s an error to say that Fyrth is the best shot among us when Lodli has been his equal since we were as tall as our own bows,” Kyvoro pointed out.

“It’s fine, Kyvoro,” she said acidly. “I’m in no way limited in my skills to one weapon.”

“Then take the feathered spear,” he offered. “You’re more accomplished than I am with the spear.”

“Kyvoro, that leaves you with the tent pole,” said Ralazo in concern.

“Someone must be left with it,” he said as he lifted the brittle pole from the ground.

Lodli toyed with the feathered spear she held, irritated that Kyvoro was being so self-sacrificing for her benefit. If anyone should have the tent pole, she thought, it should be Nekk. His weapon of highest proficiency, after all, was a needle and thread.

“Have you made your decisions?” asked Eloza.

They showed him their choices and he nodded his approval.

“There is a lizalfos colony just across the spring,” said Eloza. “You will plan and execute the clearing of this colony and you will be rewarded with any weapons they may be hording. If you do well I’ll return your own weapons to you. I will only intervene if someone is badly injured. You’ve fought with warriors on your patrols—you are now going to learn to fight together or perish.”

The five of them landed on a lip of rock and crouched behind the stones to observe the camp. There were two sentries, both green in colour. Two blue and one black lizalfos lounged near a fire at the mouth of their cave, chattering to each other.

“Well...call your foe,” said Fyrth, notching an arrow. “Green on the left.”

“Green on the right,” said Nekk.

Neither of them waited for the other three to make a call. Fyrth’s arrow dropped the sentry with a clean shot through the eyes, but Nekk’s embedded in the flesh of the other sentry. Its pained screech alerted the three who relaxed by the fire and suddenly they were upon the novices.

Lodli planted herself as a blue lizalfos leapt over the rocks. She deflected the swing of the forked boomerang with the wood of her spear and wasted no time burying the weapon in her foe’s throat. As she yanked it free, she was already leaping over the rocks. Nekk and Fyrth had taken to the sky, and she found she feared their arrows more than she feared the lizalfos around them.

“Ralazo!” she shouted as an ice lizalfos sprang from the ground behind him.

He crumbled as the reptile struck him with its steel shield. Lodli was about to engage the creature when she heard a whistle from behind. She turned in time to parry the attack from the lizal spear, but she could not seem to land a counter-blow. Her spear cracked in half where she had deflected the boomerang earlier and she hurled the pointed end into her attacker’s face. She dashed for the fire and lit the dry wood of the remainder of her spear and threw it at the creature. It dropped its spear in surprise and Lodli dived for the steel-edged weapon.

Behind her, she heard a weapon splinter and knew it must be Kyvoro’s sharped pole. She turned to see him grimace as the lizard tongue lashed his face. Fyrth and Nekk had descended upon her unbalanced foe and she changed course and raced toward Kyvoro’s. She raised her acquired spear and drove it into the exposed flesh on its spine between the end of its armour and its tail. It howled in pain as Kyvoro battered it with Ralazo’s fallen club until it fell to pieces. They stood among the carnage and scanned the area to make sure they had indeed defeated all of the lizalfos.

As Eloza landed in front of the den, he surveyed them with an expression of extreme dissatisfaction. Lodli leaned heavily against her spear, trying to catch her breath. Kyvoro rested back against a sentry’s post, similarly winded. Ralazo sat in the snow, holding his head where he had been struck with the shield. Only Fyrth and Nekk seemed happy with how things had gone where they lounged on the other sentry’s post.

“You were all nearly killed,” said Eloza.

“Hardly,” scoffed Nekk.

“And it is due to _your_ arrogant inability to work on a team,” Eloza snapped, turning on Fyrth and Nekk.

“We worked as a team,” Fyrth said.

“You failed to wait for the rest of your team and you put them at risk!”

Lodli tried hard to suppress the smile that badly wanted to surface. Usli had never shouted at Fyrth or Nekk for their toxic approach fighting, nor even acknowledged the clear problems they had operating with other warriors. She found Eloza to be quite refreshing in that regard.

“Lodli, Kyvoro, Ralazo—you can have your weapons back. I was impressed with the way you defended each other. Fyrth and Nekk, you may have another chance this afternoon. Now the two of you will salvage weapons and arrows here. Lodli, you scout north; Kyvoro, secure food for our meal; Ralazo, I’ll see to your injury.”

**Kyvoro**

Though the retreat had seen fair weather, on the evening of the last night a heavy storm rolled in from the mountains. The blood mood turned the clouds slightly red, but was otherwise hardly visible. 

Eloza had sent Kyvoro out on watch across the spring. They had cleared a bokoblin colony earlier that day and Eloza wanted advanced warning if the reanimated monsters got it in their heads to attack the camp. Kyvoro could no longer see Nekk at his post across the spring, so he bent to pluck the sprig of cool safflina which caught his eye.

“Picking flowers instead of standing watch. Typical,” came Lodli’s voice as she landed behind him.

“I wasn’t picking flowers,” he said, quickly straightening.

“Well, I’m here to relieve you,” said Lodli as she stared at the frozen blue flower he held.

Kyvoro stood in silence for a moment and Lodli looked at him expectantly.

“Well...stay or leave, it’s your decision,” she said as she turned to keep watch over the empty bokoblin camp.

“Why did you give me that wolf’s tooth?” Kyvoro blurted.

“What?”

“The night...you sought me out while I stood guard,” he clarified, “it’s been...on my mind.”

Lodli stood with her beak slightly open, as though she was waiting for her mind to come up with some sort of glib explanation.

“You seek me out, you ask me questions...to what end?” he begged of her.

“To no end, Kyvoro. We can only ever be friends.”

“Why?” he asked. “You detest Nekk and you like me! All that stands between us and our happiness is a bad-tempered tailor!”

“I can’t begin to tell you all the things that are wrong with what you’ve just said.”

“You’ve said it yourself—we must all marry!”

“Your sister came to ask about me on your behalf!” Lodli blurted.

“What?” he breathed in benumbed surprise. “When?”

“Before Nekk...”

Kyvoro didn’t know if he should be angry for Ithi’s interference or grateful that she had known his own mind before he did.

“My parents...they worry that...because Ithi’s...” she stammered.

“They don’t...want your children to be... _‘sickly’_ ,” Kyvoro realized bitterly.

“I wouldn’t be happy with anyone,” she said. “But at least I’ll be making Nekk miserable and not you. At least this way, we can remain as friends and only ever think the best of what might have been.”

Kyvoro let the cool safflina drop from his hand into the snow. Around them world seemed to radiate the with energy of the blood moon. Lodli drew her feathered edge and Kyvoro followed suit as he watched the bokoblins below recorporealize. Though they seemed a little dozy and disoriented at first, they soon began to screech and descend upon the Rito camp.

“They remembered!” said Lodli, sheathing her blade as she took off toward the camp with a warning whistle.

Her signal caught the attention of the squealing monsters below. Kyvoro whistled for her to evade as their arrows whizzed past her. He leapt into the sky, calling for their fellows to take up their weapons.

“Eloza! We need you!” shouted Lodli as she whipped her bow from her back and targeted a blue bokoblin.

The other novices the tents as the fire arrows set them ablaze. With six in the sky, the world became a frenzy of projectiles. Kyvoro dodged the flames from below so narrowly, he swore some of his feathers were singed. He heard Ralazo swear and assumed that he had been clipped by an arrow. It was the agonized shriek from Nekk—unlike anything he had ever heard—that most chilled Kyvoro. 

Kyvoro saw that Nekk had fallen on the wrong side of the spring, desperately trying to put out his burning clothing in the snow as the bokoblins descended upon him. Kyvoro dropped into a dive, pulling his blade to take out the silver bokoblin that was nearest to the fallen Rito. Ralazo landed beside him, notching two arrows and releasing them at close range into another bokoblin while Kyvoro slashed the next one to run into his wingspan. 

Behind them, Nekk tried to stifle his pained screech. Kyvoro did not take his eyes from the fight as he heard Eloza landing behind them to tend to Nekk.

“Nekk, get up, come on,” he heard their instructor urging.

“I can’t,” Nekk wept.

Above, Lodli and Fyrth continued to rain arrows upon the bokoblins. Kyvoro brazenly waded into the fray, catching one bokoblin by the top of its head and slitting its throat with brutal efficiency. He gasped as he felt a blunt metal edge glance his wing and dispatched the perpetrator with as much ease as the first. 

Soon, all of the bokoblins were defeated and the four novices circled around Nekk. Kyvoro could see that the fire had ravaged his clothes and feathers, but it was the arrow shaft that had lodged near his groin that churned Kyvoro’s stomach.

“Kyvoro, Fyrth,” said Eloza, his voice wavering as he tried to steady Nekk with his wings, “return to the village. Get Gotheli and Usli and more warriors if you can.”

“Kyvoro’s wing is bleeding quite badly,” Lodli pointed out. “I can go with Fyrth.”

“Then go now, both of you!”

Kyvoro glanced down at his wing and saw that blood had run from the long slash and dripped into his dappled feathers. It was strange that he couldn’t feel it.

“Kyvoro, see to your wing. Ralazo bring my pack. Then you can both bring what remains of the camp to us.”

Kyvoro returned to their burned out tents and bound his injury. He let Ralazo tie off the ends of the bandage as grey-brown Rito returned to gather more of their remaining supplies.

“Nekk looks really bad,” Ralazo told Kyvoro quietly, “just the whole...”

He gestured obliquely to his groin. Kyvoro felt ill as he rolled the salvageable blankets and threw them to the opposite bank of the headspring.

“Do you need help getting across?” asked Ralazo as the last remains of the camp had been pulled down.

“I made it just fine before.”

“Before your wing was bound.”

“I’m fine,” Kyvoro insisted as he climbed a rock formation for a little height and glided clumsily across the spring.

His wing had begun to throb painfully as they had transferred the camp, but Kyvoro hardly felt a little flesh wound was worth mentioning when it wasn’t clear if Nekk would even live. When they returned to help set up the camp, Eloza had given Nekk something for his pain and was dousing his burns with icy spring water.

“This arrow needs to come out,” Eloza told them. “We don’t have time to wait.”

Kyvoro glanced down at Nekk’s injury and had to crouch in the snow to fight his lightheadedness.

“Kyvoro,” said Eloza firmly, gripping his face. “Your brother needs you right now.”

Kyvoro wanted to protest that Nekk was no brother to him, but instead he took a steadying breath and nodded.

“Keep him still,” Eloza told them as he took a small dagger from the fire.

Kyvoro squeezed his eyes shut as he held Nekk’s wings and Ralazo held his legs. Nekk squirmed and ground his beak as Eloza neared him.

“Take a deep breath,” Eloza told Nekk right before Kyvoro heard him strangle his shriek of pain.

“Get off me,” Nekk grunted at Kyvoro when the arrow had been pulled free.

Kyvoro backed away from Nekk when he saw Eloza holding the fire arrow, pieces of burnt flesh stuck to its tip. Kyvoro tried not to look at the wound, but the feathers had been burned away where the arrow had been lodged, the flesh blackened in the pit that it had left behind.

“Luckily, I don’t see any bleeding” said Eloza, trying to cool the burns with frigid spring water.

“Nothing’s lucky about an arrow in the _fucking vent_ ,” Nekk spat.

“To be fair,” said Kyvoro before he could stop himself, “the arrow did did miss that target, though not by much.”

Kyvoro covered his beak as Ralazo stared at him in shock and Nekk hid his face with his wing.

“Kyvoro, be elsewhere,” Eloza advised him, as he continued to treat Nekk.

Kyvoro went to stand watch, horrified with himself. He hoped that Lodli and Fyrth would return quickly with enough warriors to bear Nekk home. 

The sun was just beginning to cut beneath the clouds on the horizon, turning the world beyond the mountains a dark pink when Ralazo came to stand with Kyvoro.

“For someone so quiet, you sure know how to say the wrong thing,” commented Ralazo.

Kyvoro nodded, ashamed; Ithi had pointed this out to him many times before.

“He’s...” Ralazo hesitated, “he’s in a lot of trouble. The arrow burned him quite deeply.”

“Should I apologize?”

“Perhaps don’t speak to him.”

Kyvoro stood in uncomfortable silence with Ralazo as he watched the sky, grey with morning light as the sun moved behind the thick cloud cover.

“Do you see that?” he asked, pointing to the figures on the horizon.

“Eloza!” called Ralazo. “They’re on the way!”

“You two need to pack up. Ralazo, you’re charged with getting Kyvoro home.”

As the six warriors and Lodli landed, Kyvoro watched the strained expressions of those who saw the injury. Gotheli knelt by Nekk’s head trying to kept him calm as they prepared him for travel. Lodli glanced back as she joined Kyvoro and Ralazo where they packed.

“So, pretty bad then?” she asked, glancing back as the warriors lifted Nekk onto a sturdy blanket to bear him home.

“I doubt he’s having kids,” said Ralazo absently.

“What?” exclaimed Lodli.

Ralazo looked up, as though he suddenly remembered to whom he was speaking.

“Lodli, what happened to Fyrth?” Kyvoro asked.

“He got to the village and fell apart. His mother had to come collect him while I got the warriors together.”

“Did you see my brother?” Kyvoro asked, his wing throbbing.

“I didn’t want to take him away from his son,” said Lodli.

“Are you ready to go?” urged Eloza.

The three nodded as four of the warriors began to fly in formation with Nekk between them in his blanket.

“Try to keep up,” Eloza urged the remaining novices.

“C’mon,” said Ralazo.

They followed the spring to the drop off and Ralazo pulled Kyvoro’s injured wing over his shoulder. Kyvoro tried to suppress his sharp gasp at the movement.

“Have you flown in tandem before?” Ralazo asked.

Kyvoro nodded. When he was a child he would fly with Ithi like this to act as her eyes. Now that he towered over his diminutive sister they flew using proximity signals.

“Let’s go home,” said Lodli as she leapt into the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a note about the development of the insult ‘gaping vent’ but it’s insanely long so if anyone really wants to know that whole thing, please do ask. I have had this chapter sort of done for like a month but then I ended up pushing out a bunch of other stuff. I wanted to get a few chapters ahead of this and...it’s going to get pretty bleak for a little bit, but for those familiar with my writing style will know I try to punctuate dark moments with humour or sweet moments, and I’m still doing that, I just think everyone deserves a heads up. Myself, I like it a little dark :)


	6. Battle Wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In light of events at the novice retreat, there appointments within the ranks of the warriors that must be reshuffled. The retreat has come to be deemed one of the most unfortunate in recent memory and may be the cause of future reconsideration of how warriors are initiated._

_In light of events at the novice retreat, there appointments within the ranks of the warriors that must be reshuffled. The retreat has come to be deemed one of the most unfortunate in recent memory and may be the cause of future reconsideration of how warriors are initiated._

**Avill**

Evening was falling after a day of soft-grey cloud cover and the novices should have already returned. Avill had been worried since the moment his brother had left for the retreat, and he had already heard the whispers that something terrible had befallen Nekk. Unable to otherwise occupy himself, he had turned that anxiety into an impressive set of falcon bows and an extremely clean roost. 

Harth—perhaps fearing that he, too, might be made to clean—had left to play with his friends. Avill did not have it in his heart to stop him; Harth had fair few enough years left before he would be in Kyvoro’s position of solicitations of marriage and the responsibilities of warriorhood, and Avill felt as helpless to protect his son as he did his brother.

“Dad! Dad! Dad!”

Avill looked up from his work and set the fine chisel aside as Harth raced into roost, flapping his wings as he ran in his childish habit.

“Careful,” said Avill, catching his son by the wing before he knocked into the table with the carving tools.

“The warriors are coming back! They have someone in a blanket!”

“Did you see Kyvoro?” Avill asked.

“He wasn’t with them.”

Avill’s chest tightened. He needed to know that Kyvoro was safe.

“Hold my hand,” Avill instructed Harth, “don’t run off.”

“Dad,” complained Harth.

“I mean it.”

Together, they wound their way down the boardwalk toward the foot of the village. Hearing the Gotheli’s shout, Avill pulled Harth aside as four warriors rounded the bend, bearing a blanket between them. When he saw that it was Nekk who lay panting and grievously injured in the stretcher, Avill released a tense sigh, ashamed by his relief.

Seeing Eloza trailing after the party, his face drawn with exhaustion, Avill caught him by the wing.

“Where’s my brother?”

“With two other novices. They should be here soon,” said Eloza, his usually severe expression marred by dread as he pulled his wing from Avill. “I need to go.”

Avill scrambled down to the foot of the village but it seemed that everyone who had awaited the novices had either followed after Nekk or been scattered back to their roosts.

“Stand still,” Avill told his son as Harth squirmed impatiently.

“I don’t think he’s coming here,” said Harth.

“Why do you say that?”

“I bet he went to Revali’s Landing.”

“Alright, we’ll check,” Avill agreed, if only to keep them both busy.

As they wended their way back to the top of the village, Avill carefully shielded Harth from the chaos in the roost Nekk shared with his mother. Before they had reached the landing, Harth pointed toward the door of their roost and Avill glanced up to see Kyvoro. He stood disoriented, framed in the doorway, his feathers fluffed in distress and his wing bandaged.

“Avill...”

Frightened by the distance in Kyvoro’s voice, Avill dropped his son’s hand and closed the distance to his brother. Concerned he was on the brink of collapse, Avill slid his wing around him and urged him into the roost.

“You’re alright,” Avill assured him in spite of the fear that gripped his own heart. “Just come sit down.”

“I injured my wing,” Kyvoro said numbly as he gave in to Avill and sat down at the back of the roost.

“Harth, go fetch Ithi,” Avill told his son, concerned by Kyvoro’s uncharacteristic compliance. “And stay out of the way.”

“Alright,” agreed Harth as he ran from the roost, pleased to have something to do.

“What happened?” asked Avill as he unwound the blood-soaked binding.

“I think Nekk may die,” rasped Kyvoro.

“Don’t worry about that. Tell me what happened to you.”

Kyvoro flinched as Avill pulled away the last sticky layer of the binding from his wing. by all the blood that mattered his feathers and stuck to the fabric, It did not look as though Kyvoro had cleansed the wound, the ragged edge already red and swollen with the beginnings of infection.

“Kyvoro, this is a mess.”

At those words, Kyvoro closed his eyes and bowed his head as though he were about to weep. Avill could think of nothing to do but reach a hand up to Kyvoro’s face to calm him.

“Shh, it’s alright.”

“I’m sorry,” whispered Kyvoro. “I didn’t know it was bad until it was too late.”

“I’m going to take care of this,” Avill told him as confidently as he could manage, smoothing the feathers on Kyvoro’s warm cheek.

As Avill crouched next to him, waiting on his son to return with Ithi, Kyvoro sat in a daze, staring down at his wing. He shuddered a little beneath his fluffed feathers, but didn’t flinch away from Avill’s calming touch. It was so unlike Kyvoro to allow Avill to comfort him, Avill had grown quite worried by the time Ithi and Harth returned. 

The two entered the roost together, Ithi holding Harth’s wing tightly to keep the energetic child from running off in a time of crisis.

“I brought her,” Harth announced.

“Kyvoro?” Ithi asked at the door.

“Back here,” called Avill, when their brother didn’t respond.

Ithi stretched out her wing to Kyvoro and he reached his good wing to her as she came to stand beside him. As Kyvoro wrapped his wing around her in desperation, she held his face in her hands and smoothed his feathers.

“You’re home now,” she soothed.

“I need to get some things together,” Avill told Ithi.

“Go, we’re fine.”

“Stay put,” Avill said as he lifted Harth into his own hammock in the rafters.

As Avill set out to the cooking pot, he tried his best to block out the horrible screech as he passed by Nekk’s roost. Seeing how the warriors held Nekk down while Frossia tended to him, Avill winced and hurried past.

Near the cooking pot, his fellow warrior, Senla, caught up with him.

“Did you hear about Nekk?” she asked, following him across the bridge to the stone-floored kitchen.

“I saw he was injured,” said Avill as he set to boiling some water, distracted by his own brother’s plight.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do about Lodli if we lose him.”

“Senla,” said Avill, not really listening, “I need some spirits and herbs for a poultice or I fear my brother may lose his wing to infection.”

“I have herbs,” offered Senla. “But I think only Frossia keeps spirits.”

“Are you able to bring them to Ithi in my roost?”

“Of course,” she agreed.

By the time Avill had returned to his roost with the boiled water, Senla had made good on her offer. Ithi sat on the floor away from Kyvoro, grinding the herbs with a mortar and pestle. Above, Harth swung sullenly in the hammock, staring down at Kyvoro’s bloody wing.

“Has he said anything?” Avill asked quietly as he crouched beside his sister.

“No.” she whispered, “Avill, he’s very warm.”

“I know.”

“You need to take care of this now before it gets any worse.”

Avill glanced back at his brother; this would likely be painful and he didn’t want to frighten Harth.

“Can you take Harth and find out if Frossia has any spirits to cleanse this?”

“I think Frossia will be occupied with Nekk...”

“Then ask her granddaughter. Saki knows where everything is. And get something for the pain if you can.”

“Harth,” Ithi called as she stood, “come lend me your wing.”

Harth leapt down from the hammock and threaded his wing through Ithi’s, simply glad to be included. Avill didn’t watch them leave as he knelt by Kyvoro’s side dropped a rough cloth into the bowl. 

Taking his brother’s wing, Avill plucked away the damaged feathers. Kyvoro winced, but did not withdraw.

“Will you tell me what happened?” Avill asked while he worked.

“I barely felt it,” recalled Kyvoro. “A bokoblin cut me and I ended him. I didn’t know it was bleeding until after the fight.”

“Did you not have time to cleanse it?”

“Nekk was injured and I was just reacting...I only bound it because I was told to.”

Avill squeezed the water from the cloth with one hand and wiped at the inflamed edge of the wound. At the touch of the rough cloth, Kyvoro hissed and yanked his wing from Avill’s grip.

“Kyvoro, do you recognize how serious this is?”

“It hurts!” Kyvoro protested through his clenched beak.

“It’ll hurt a lot more if this corruption spreads and you lose your wing!” snapped Avill.

“It’s not that bad...” said Kyvoro, clearly surprised that Avill had lost his temper.

“You already have a fever! This is infected, it’s _very_ bad!”

Kyvoro returned his wing to Avill and tensed as Avill cleansed the ragged tissue as best he could. As he soaked away the dried blood that matted Kyvoro’s dappled wing, Avill tried to ignore how he anxiously picked at the feathers at his collar and leaned his head back against the back wall of the roost, blinking hard.

“I’m not angry, Kyvoro,” Avill said gently, worried his brother was about to break down. “I lost my patience because I’m concerned.”

“I know. It’s not that. I haven’t slept in two days,” Kyvoro told him in a wavering voice. “Everything is painful and my head is pounding.”

“You can rest soon. As soon as I’m finished.”

Ithi and Harth returned once more and Harth handed Avill the corked ceramic bottle of spirits. Ithi didn’t mention anything, but was plain to Avill that she had not been able to acquire anything for their brother’s pain.

“Ithi, come sit with Kyvoro.”

“I’m fine,” Kyvoro insisted, but he broke down as soon as Ithi rested her wing on his shoulder.

“It’s alright,” she told him as she wrapped her small wings around his face and pulled him close. “Avill did this too when he came home from his retreat and he wasn’t even injured.”

Avill gestured for Harth to give him some space as he wet a fresh cloth with the spirits.

“Avill cries about everything,” Kyvoro said into her shoulder.

“No one is denying that,” agreed Ithi as she stroked his crest.

While Ithi kept Kyvoro calm, Avill cleansed the wound as best he could, keeping a firm grasp on Kyvoro’s wrist as tensed and tried to pull away. When he was finished, Avill gestured for his son to bring the herbs that Ithi had ground and he spread them over the wound with the last of his courser bee honey before he rebound it with clean linen strips. 

Concerned that Kyvoro would not be able to reach a hammock in the rafters, he fastened the guest hammock to the railings. Kyvoro was shaky with fatigue as Avill helped him remove his cuirass and helped him into the hammock.

“I can go home,” Kyvoro protested as Avill put a wing around him.

“Just lie back,” Avill urged, his wing behind Kyvoro’s shoulders.

Kyvoro winced as he rested his injured wing across his chest as he settled and Avill tucked a blanket around him. 

“I’m glad you came here,” Avill told him, gently stroking his warm face.

“I knew you’d worry,” he quietly admitted.

“I can’t help it.”

“Well, you don’t have to cry about it.”

“I’m not,” said Avill. “Close your eyes and rest. Ithi will be here with you.”

“Where are you going?” Kyvoro begged.

“To see what I can find for the pain.”

Before he stood to leave, Avill pressed his beak to his brother’s feverish forehead, grateful that Kyvoro had not tried to see to this on his own.

“Harth, stay here and do what Ithi tells you.”

**Frossia**

Frossia had come from a long line of healers and in her many years she had dealt with all manner of ailments, but Nekk’s was one of the worst she had seen in a very long time. She had long ago grown accustomed to the terrible responsibilities that came with her position, but was still shaken by Cressi’s wail when she told her that there was a fair chance that her son would not survive the night.

Frossia knew well the pain of such loss; she had lost both her son and daughter and three of her grandchildren in the Collapse. That Saki had survived with no physical injury was nothing short of a miracle, but a night spent clinging to a broken support while she watched the rest of the boardwalk peel away and slide into the water below had left its mark on the poor girl. It had been months before she could utter a sound, even longer before Frossia didn’t awake each night to find Saki nestled in her hammock with her. Saki had never been able to explain how she survived.

Right now, Frossia wanted nothing more than to return to her roost and hold her granddaughter, but was surprised to find both Avill and Genik in her roost as Saki explained as best she could that there was no pain tonic left; after all, Nekk had been the greater need as Frossia had excised the damaged tissue and stitched him back together.

Genik looked worried, but accepted what she was saying with a stoicism no doubt borne of life with Akarth. Akarth should not yet be low on his supply as it was, unless he had increased his dosage; his injuries from the Collapse remained horrifying and painful nearly two years later, but Akarth was only hastening his death with such measures as Frossia tried over and over to tell him.

Less accepting than Genik, Avill paced—no doubt waiting for Frossia—his feathers flattened in panic. Avill had always been rather prone to such worrying, she thought; the number of times he had brought Harth to her roost over something small astonished Frossia. At least he could never be charged with not loving his child.

“Genik, Avill,” Frossia greeted them.

“Saki tells me you haven’t any pain tonic left,” Avill said.

“Saki is correct,” agreed Frossia. “I’ll be making more—and some for your father as well, Genik—but it takes nearly a full day to prepare.”

“My brother is injured. I fear infection is setting in,” said Avill.

“Have you cleansed his wound? Applied honey and herbs?”

“Yes, but he’s feverish and in pain.”

As Avill spoke, Frossia watched Genik’s brow furrow with worry.

“Let the fever fly its course,” advised Frossia. “You must wait for the application to do its work.”

“And you have nothing at all for his pain?” Avill demanded.

“Avill, I cannot offer what I do not have.”

Avill huffed in in frustration as left the roost.

“My father will be out of tonic in two days,” said Genik carefully. “I fear what may happen on the third.”

“I will deliver it myself,” promised Frossia, hoping that the promise would be enough to protect Genik from Akarth’s volatility.

**Avill**

Avill sat on the steps by Revali’s Landing trying to calm himself after Frossia could offer him nothing for Kyvoro’s pain.

“Avill,” Ithi called softly as she left the roost.

“Here.”

Harth must have seen him from his perch in Avill’s hammock, he realized as Ithi approached, her wings coming to rest on his shoulders as she stood behind him on the steps.

“Kyvoro’s fallen asleep,” Ithi told him.

“That’s good.”

“I take it you had no more success than we did?”

“I don’t want him to suffer in pain for days...and if he should have to lose his wing...”

“Frossia would never do such a thing without enough pain reliever to put down a rhinoceros,” Ithi promised, her hands tightening on his shoulders. “Is it really so bad as that?”

“I don’t know,” said Avill. “Not yet.”

“Then you need to set your fears aside for a bit and go in there to be with him. Despite his assurances that he’s alright on his own, he didn’t come home to me. He came here—to _you_ —for help; he wants you to keep him safe because he’s scared.”

Avill made a dismissive noise as he ran his wing across his beak. Kyvoro rarely sought comfort outside of himself. Even as a child, he would wrap himself in his wings and avoid Avill and Ithi when he’d been hurt or frightened. The last time he had even let Avill care for him without protest had been during a childhood illness, and Avill suspected it was only because he didn’t have the strength to fight him off.

“Come on,” Ithi said, prodding Avill until he stood.

As Avill returned to his roost, he saw Genik standing frozen on the boardwalk. Only another summer stood between him and adulthood, his sea green plumage an adolescent mess of adult flight feathers and childish down that poked out from his ill-fitting leather cuirass.

“It’s alright, Genik,” Avill sighed, inviting him into his roost with a gesture.

“Where’d you go?” Harth demanded as they entered the roost.

“Harth, please don’t shout. I was just on the landing,” Avill told him as he stalked back to where Kyvoro stirred.

“Avill,” he breathed groggily. “It’s grown very loud in here.”

“I know, Harth got a little excited,” said Avill quietly, casting a warning glance at his son. “I think Genik wants to make sure you’re alright.”

Kyvoro blinked in surprise and Avill began to wonder if everyone had it backwards; Kyvoro was broadly indifferent to nearly everyone, but Genik very obviously adored him. After a moment he nodded and Avill gestured that Genik was welcome to visit with Kyvoro.

“Will your father be missing you?” Avill asked him carefully, unwilling to provoke Akarth in such tense circumstances. 

“He has night patrol,” Genik assured him as he crouched beside the hammock and took Kyvoro’s wing in his. 

Avill watched the two for a moment, Kyvoro never quite letting himself slip into vulnerability as Genik comforted him. At least he was like that with everyone, Avill thought bitterly.

“Where did Ithi go?” Avill asked Harth as he glanced around the roost.

Harth shrugged, “are we getting dinner tonight?”

Avill took a deep breath, “yes.”

After the harrowing day, Avill didn’t have it in him to prepare more than a few fish skewers. When he returned to his roost, Genik had left and Ithi had still not come back. Avill didn’t worry about Ithi, but he was irritated that she would not be here to eat when food was not so secure.

“Kyvoro, do you want anything?” Avill asked.

Kyvoro shook his head. Avill set the extra portions aside in case Ithi returned or Kyvoro felt up to eating later. 

It was growing late as Avill tucked Harth into his hammock and bid him goodnight.

“Avill,” came a ragged call from across the room, as Avill combed his beak over Harth’s crest.

Kyvoro reached out for him, his face drawn. Worried, Avill took his brother’s wing and knelt beside the hammock.

“What’s wrong?” Avill asked gently smoothing the fluffed feathers on Kyvoro’s breast.

“Is there truly nothing for the pain?” he whispered a note of shame creeping into his tone.

“I haven’t been able to find anything.”

Kyvoro nodded, accepting this with his usual attempt at stoicism. As he shivered, Avill continued to stroke Kyvoro’s ruffled feathers, hoping he might soothe him.

“Is you wing keeping you awake?”

“I’m alright,” Kyvoro insisted.

“I know.”

As Kyvoro shifted uncomfortably, Avill reached his wing behind his shoulders and held his brother’s uninjured hand. Kyvoro gripped Avill hard, his hand quivering as he tried to control his pain, and Avill pressed his forehead to Kyvoro’s cheek.

“Close your eyes,” Avill whispered as he held him close. “You’re safe now.”

**Lodli**

It had been a day since their return from the retreat. After she had parted ways with Kyvoro and Ralazo, Lodli had stripped off her leather armour, cast it to the floor and collapsed in her hammock. She slept all through that night and well into the next day. She might have slept all through the afternoon if Antilli had not leapt into her hammock.

“Lodli, you stink,” her sister told her.

“Go away.”

“Mom says you have to clean yourself up,” Antilli told her.

Lodli pushed herself from her hammock, her wings and breast aching badly from her long distance flight the day before. Pulling on what clothes she could find, she left the roost, Antilli following her to the landing.

“You think you’re coming with me?” Lodli asked.

“Try and stop me.”

Lodli sighed and set out for the short stack nearest to the mainland so she could rinse the sweat and grit from her feathers, Antilli close behind. As Lodli carelessly dropped her clothes near the water’s edge Antilli sat on the rock near the pond kicking up tiny sprays of water with her talons.

“Can you now wear the braids of a warrior?” Antilli asked Lodli as she untangled the leather bindings that wrapped her maiden braids.

“I don’t know,” she said, stepping into the cold, clear pond water. “We were supposed to have a night of meditation, but we didn’t get to.”

Lodli shivered a little as she scrubbed the water through her feathers to her skin and plucked two broken coverts from her wing with her beak. They must have been damaged as she flew with Kyvoro.

“I can’t wait until I’m a warrior. I’m already much better than Harth,” Antilli bragged.

“I believe you,” Lodli responded, though she wondered if with all the changes in the village that Antilli would be permitted to seek her honour as she had.

When Lodli had finished bathing, she shook her feathers and showered Antilli with droplets. Antilli backed away as Lodli straightened her flight feathers and dried off in the mild autumn sun. When Lodli had donned her clothes and bound her braids, she thought guiltily of the state Kyvoro had been in when she left him.

“You go home,” Lodli told Antilli.

“I’m supposed to have practice, but they’ve called it off today,” Antilli pouted.

“Then go chase Teba and Harth or something.”

“Why? Why can’t I go with you?”

“Because I have my own matter to attend to.”

Lodli leapt into the updrafts and circled upward until she reached Revali’s Landing. That day’s landing was so unlike the previous day. Where this day was crisp and golden, the day prior had been ceaselessly grey and cool with a threatening rain that never came. Kyvoro had staggered between her and Ralazo, but insisted they leave him at Avill’s roost. Too exhausted to argue, she and Ralazo had gone their separate ways and left Kyvoro to his brother.

As Lodli approached Avill’s roost now, she could see Kyvoro resting in a hammock along the back railing while Ithi and Avill sat at his workbench, whispering over the tensile strength of the available wood. Lodli cleared her throat at the door and Avill came to meet her.

“I just wanted to see that Kyvoro was well,” said Lodli.

“He had a difficult night,” Avill told her, “but I believe his wing will heal.”

“Good,” she said, not really knowing how else to respond.

“And what off Nekk?” Avill asked.

It occurred to Lodli in that moment that she hadn’t shed a feather in worry over Nekk—her betrothed—when his injuries were far graver than Kyvoro’s slashed wing. As she stood before Avill, she realized that this probably looked quite bad.

“I...have to...” she made a vague gesture to suggest her leaving, which she immediately regretted for its awkwardness.

“Right, of course,” said Avill politely. “Shall I tell Kyvoro you called?”

“No need to make a fuss,” she said as she quickly turned and headed back to her parents’ roost.

Her body still aching from the flight, Lodli sought to lie down in her hammock, but was foiled when she returned to the roost to find her father, his brow furrowed.

“Lodli, where’ve you been?” Skoss asked.

“Nowhere. Mom said I had to get cleaned up.”

“Cressi is expecting us,” Skoss told her, directing her back out to the boardwalk with a wing on her shoulder.

“Why? Nekk hasn’t died, has he?” she asked disinterestedly.

“You are strangely unfeeling for someone who may lose her betrothed.”

“I’m still exhausted,” Lodli protested, though she felt a surprising lack of guilt over the thought of losing Nekk.

“You are expected to be by his side,” Skoss told her, “hold his wing, stroke his brow.”

“That doesn’t sound like me.”

“Listen,” hissed Skoss leaning in close. “I know you don’t love him—”

“A generous assessment.”

“— _but_ , regardless of what happens, you need to make a good impression.”

“For whom?” groaned Lodli.

“If he doesn’t make it, you can’t be seen to be callous. If he does, and you haven’t been with him, he will resent you.”

Lodli sighed; she hated when her father was right—and he always seemed to be when it came to matters of perception.

“I don’t know if I can bear Cressi’s weeping,” Lodli muttered.

“I think you’ll find you learn to bear a great many things you never thought you could,” Skoss told her, his wing still clamped firmly on her shoulder as he directed her down the boardwalk.

As they arrived at Cressi’s roost, Antilli could see that her mother was already inside. Senla stood behind Cressi, trying to comfort her while she held her son’s limp wing. Lodli could see that her mother didn’t seem to relish this any more that she did.

“Oh, Lodli,” said Cressi, tears spilling down her dark brown feathers, her voice thick. “Nekk has been asking for you.”

Senla fixed Lodli with an expectant look as Cressi rose to cede her spot to Lodli. She felt her father squeeze her shoulder and she followed through with her directions, her throat sour with disgust as she sat down and took Nekk’s russet wing in her own.

“Lodli,” he rasped.

“Come, Cressi,” coaxed Senla, wrapping her wing around her. “Let’s take in some air.”

Skoss shot Lodli a warning look rather like the one that accompanied the commandment that his daughters ‘behave’ when they were acting up. Lodli had not been on the receiving end of such a look in years.

“Glad you came,” Nekk slurred.

“What choice did I have?” she offered with ambiguous brightness.

“The pain...is so bad.”

“Yes, I imagine it is.”

She glanced down to where the clean linen rested loosely over Nekk’s groin. She could no sign of the injury, save a bald batch that extended beyond the dressing where his burnt feathers had been plucked away.

“Have you seen my wolf’s tooth?” he asked. “I need its luck.”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t,” she lied easily.

He pulled her hand to his cheek and held it there. Imagining herself elsewhere, she reluctantly stroked his face.

“Frossia said I was bleeding inside. I keep passing blood.”

“Nekk, you needn’t tell me this,” Lodli sighed, still stroking his face.

“You should know how bad it is,” he told her. “Just in case...”

“Don’t worry about that,” she said, thinking perhaps she’d got the hang of this. “Don’t worry about anything right now.”

“I worry this pain will never end...the tonic is wearing off and I’ve heard there’s none left.”

“How about you shut your eyes and rest?”

“Lodli...you are far too good for me.”

“Oh believe me, I know,” she scoffed under her breath.

Cressi returned and Lodli was more than happy to let her remain at Nekk’s side, though Senla told her she would be expected to stay. In hopes that she could both appear helpful and leave the roost, Lodli cooked meals and fetched things for Cressi and Nekk. As night fell, she remained with her betrothed and his mother as any dutiful wife-to-be would. The thought filled her with disgust.

The sky had grown dark when Frossia brought more pain reliever and came to check Nekk’s wound. Lodli caught sight of it with morbid curiosity—a puckered, stitched line barely a feather’s breadth from his cloaca, surrounded by surface burns. It was hardly a wonder he was passing blood, Lodli thought as she stumbled dizzily onto the boardwalk.

It had certainly ruined any mystery that might remain about their wedding night, she thought as she steadied herself with a wing against the stone pillar. The sight Nekk’s injury had shaken her more than she cared to admit, and she stayed on the boardwalk until Frossia left the roost, the moonlight glinting off her dark, honey-coloured feathers.

“Lodli,” she said.

Frossia spoke in the clipped manner of the Akkala Rito. It was an accent that that Lodli thought they must have maintained out of some sort of disdain for the Northern Rito. It spoke of their heritage of diplomats trapped in Rito Village by the Calamity, where they took on the gentle roles of healers, historians, composers and merchants while the Northern Rito broke their bodies as warriors, tradesfolk and crafters. Lodli had heard some of the less charitable among the warriors mutter that they were not sad to see the end of them in the Collapse.

“Healer,” Lodli acknowledged.

“It’s good of you to stay with Nekk, despite what the Elder will say.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Cressi hasn’t informed you?”

“Informed me of what?” pressed Lodli.

Frossia glanced back at the roost and took her wing, tugging Lodli a little way up the boardwalk.

“Since she is keeping this from you, and you are to wed, I believe it is only fair that you should know...”

Lodli nodded vigorously, urging Frossia on.

“Nekk’s injuries will have left him unable to...share himself.”

“Are you saying he’s been left unable to procreate?” Lodli clarified.

“I would doubt very much if he weren’t.”

“Thank you, Healer,” breathed Lodli, suppressing her smile. “I may again call upon you.”

“Certainly.”

When Lodli returned to the roost, she offered to sit with Nekk for the night so Cressi could sleep. As Cressi slept in her hammock and Nekk lay in a swoon under the influence of the pain reliever, Lodli imagined how she would inform her parents of this news.

When Cressi awoke the next morning, Lodli excused herself—making sure to stoop to stroke Nekk’s face with all the faux tenderness she could muster—and returned to her parent’s roost.

“Dad, where’s Mom?” she asked, gripping Skoss’s russet wing happily.

“The Flight Range...why, what have you done?”

“Nekk’s injury has left him infertile,” she told him.

“How can you know that?” he asked.

“Well, you flew him back, you know what happened to him.”

“I also held him down while Frossia cut away corrupted flesh and stopped his bleeding—the tone you’re taking on this is far too casual for how much he has suffered.”

“Frossia told me!” Lodli insisted. “I think Cressi is keeping it a secret so that the marriage will still go ahead.”

“Perhaps she is merely a parent worried over her child...Nekk may yet die.”

“We can wait until that risk has passed, but Dad, you must get me out of this arrangement.”

Skoss nodded grimly.

“Of course...but don’t think that this frees your from your obligation; Nasoli will still see you married.”

\---

It was a moon’s turn before Nekk was well enough to stand before the Elder. Lodli had been happily biding her time, sharing the news with only Kyvoro when he had recovered from his injury. He had said nothing, but Lodli could see the spark in his eyes reignited each time they relieved each other from watch. She worried that this might give him ideas about their future, but pragmatically decided that a life with Kyvoro might be the best outcome she could hope for.

As she and Nekk stood before the Elder, their parents behind them, he wore a look of disbelief as Frossia testified to the irreparable damage he had suffered.

“Nekk, Lodli,” sighed Nasoli. “I have the sad duty of dissolving this agreement, considerations notwithstanding.”

“Lodli,” said Nekk, grasping her wing in disbelief. “I thought you could see past this...”

“Nekk,” interrupted Nasoli, “this has nothing to do with what anyone wants. Lodli is healthy and must produce offspring if our tribe is to survive—she cannot enter into an agreement with you.”

“I’m sorry, Nekk,” she said, laying her wing on his shoulder as he covered his eyes.

When she returned to her roost with her parents, they were already sighing between each other about who might have to speak to Akarth about Genik. Lodli had no intention of marrying Genik, but she wasn’t about to tell them that when she’d only just escaped Nekk.

“Where are you going?” Senla asked as Lodli collected her bow and slung it on her back.

“This has been quite a day,” she said seriously. “I’m going to bring back some fowl, see to my thoughts on my own.”

He mother nodded her acquiescence and Lodli left the roost and leapt from the boardwalk. She managed to keep herself to herself until she set down at the Warbler’s Nest, the gentle breeze blowing through the pillars as they sighed their ancient notes. 

As she landed, Lodli caught herself against the ancient stone and let the relief that had been building inside of her escape. Her laughter echoed across the Warbler’s Nest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not apologize for Lodli...or moments of gratuitous h/c.
> 
> BTW, let me know which characters you’re invested in ~~so I can kill them~~. I’m kidding, no one dies except those who already have their names on my list. It’s extremely inflexible. I just want to make sure I’m hitting the right stuff and answering the questions you've got to know about :)


	7. Hunger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Early Winter, 79 years since the Calamity. Our stores have nearly depleted in the last moon and monsters run rampant through our lands. There is not a winter in recent memory where such activity has been recorded. The result is a sharp decline in the availability of game in the region._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something a touch salacious seems to have written itself toward the end of this chapter. Still M for ‘lightly racy’ I’d say, but I am almost certain no one comes to my fics for the romance (feel free to tell me otherwise) which is why I’m warning for it.

_Early Winter, 79 years since the Calamity. Our stores have nearly depleted in the last moon and monsters run rampant through our lands. There is not a winter in recent memory where such activity has been recorded. The result is a sharp decline in the availability of game in the region. Usli has recalled warriors from leave and doubled the patrols in the area with a goal to keeping the monsters at bay. In better days the announcement that Usli and Kisot have candled their first egg would have been more gladly received; in such times as these, it may be a mercy if it does not hatch._

**Kaneli**

It was early winter and the clear day held the searing bite of cold as all cloudless days did. On those days, Kaneli felt the chill right to the bones in his leg which had never mended quite right. Setting aside the bitter ache, Kaneli took Teba to hunt in the rocky plateaus between the Flight Range and Lake Kilsie in hopes that they might find some fowl. Though he could easily outmatch his peers, Teba remained small for his age, and Kaneli worried that the depleting food stores might hamper his growth.

Though Teba trained regularly with his peers under Gotheli’s tutelage, Kaneli found he had higher expectations for Tukoh’s son. He often assigned Teba to read from the histories of the Rito so that he might gain a broader insight into their place in the world. Teba would often share his childish insights from the readings as he and Kaneli flew together to the Flight Range or further afield to better test his skills. It became immediately clear that Teba idolized the Champion Revali, and memorized everything he could find about him.

“...and Master Revali was hatched on the Lower Pillar, just like me,” said Teba, “he didn’t come from an important family, but he became a hero anyway.”

“And how do you think he did that?”

“Strict training, every day,” said Teba confidently, “and I intend to follow in his flight path.”

“Excellent!” Kaneli encouraged.

They set down on the peaks above the Flight Range, and Kaneli scanned their surroundings for pigeons or perhaps something more substantial. Teba held his swallow bow out in front of him as he inspected it. The bow was very nearly as long as he was tall.

“But my father...” said Teba, “he said that we’re of the same bloodline as Master Revali...is that true?”

“From everything I’ve found...I believe it is.”

“And because we are of a Champion’s bloodline...the Goddess expects us to train harder, to fight better than everyone else in case Ganon should return.”

“That’s not something you need to worry about,” said Kaneli, “all you must do is become the best warrior you can be.”

“Is reading a part of that? Harth never has to read anything.”

“Harth will learn his father’s trade,” said Kaneli, “but your father had no trade. If you wish to follow in your father’s flight path and become First Warrior as he did, you will require a greater breadth of knowledge of war-craft than Harth will as a bow-maker.”

“I do intend to become First Warrior,” said Teba, “I wish to make my father’s spirit proud.”

“I’m certain he already is,” said Kaneli, resting a wing atop Teba’s head, “now, we must keep our voices down. Game has grown scarce, and we want to return with something your mother can cook.”

“Because I’m the hunter now,” whispered Teba, “I have to take care of her where my father cannot.”

Kaneli nodded sadly. Teba had inherited his father’s disposition. Such a man made for a strong warrior and a good leader, but Tukoh’s rigidity had nearly broken him over and over. Kaneli prayed that Teba could find some flexibility in the strict code that he had already adopted; Kaneli couldn’t bear the thought of losing another of his pupils.

**Kyvoro**

Winter had begun in earnest by the time Nekk was well enough to participate in the final step in becoming a warrior. Normally, this ritual was observed immediately after the novices’ return from their retreat, but in Eloza’s haste to quit the role and in light of Nekk’s grave injury, the ritual had been postponed until early winter.

The novices spent the day in practice at the Flight Range with Gotheli to ensure their exhaustion. They were given nothing to eat through the day and permitted only water. Kyvoro didn’t think Avill had been made to fast during his trial, but he supposed that food stores had not been so low in those days. He had heard the whispers from the fledged warriors that monsters were encroaching on their territories and chasing the game further afield.

Night had fallen by the time the novices were led to the Warbler’s Nest. There, Usli and Skoss had set up torches around the strange pillars and lit a fire at the centre of the circle. The dancing flames cast shadows of the pillars across the wind-blown snow. In Kyvoro’s starving and sleep-deprived mind, the shadows resembled grasping hands, fingers curling unsettlingly as they moved back and forth over ridges in the snow.

As Gotheli, Usli and Skoss stood watch, the novices sat in front of the pillars around the fire and unbound their braids. The wind whistled through the circles, blowing strange, ethereal notes that filled Kyvoro’s buzzing head as he stared into the fire and forced himself to stay awake. They were permitted neither to speak nor to sleep as they contemplated their roles as warriors through the night.

As the moon moved across the sky, Kyvoro stared across to where Lodli sat, her honey-brown eyes reflecting the flames as she returned his stare. She looked exhausted, but Kyvoro had never thought anyone could look so lovely as she did with her braids unbound over her shoulders. He felt the barest smile crossing his face and he watched as she returned it with her own.

He wasn’t sure how long he and Lodli stared across the fire—each willing the other to make it through until morning—but Kyvoro made a decision as he watched the light dancing in her eyes. Kyvoro was a solitary soul—Genik had clung to him and insisted that they were friends until it had become true—but his friendship with Lodli had grown from a more subtle understanding. If he must bind his life to someone, he wanted so desperately for it to be her.

When the sun began to rise, a warrior from each of their families arrived to put the first warrior’s braids in their hair. Kyvoro sat dizzy with exhaustion as Avill wound the dark strand of cured leather through his braid, a look of pride on his face.

“Mom and Dad would have been proud,” Avill said as he finished and patted the side of Kyvoro’s face affectionately.

Kyvoro glanced across the circle to where Skoss brushed his beak across Lodli’s forehead as he finished her braid. He wasn’t frightened so by the thought of joining Skoss and Senla’s family as he was by Cosoth or Akarth.

“Arise, novices,” said Usli.

Kyvoro stood, his body like lead, but his heart buoyant with relief.

“Do you vow to place honour above pride?”

“I swear,” Kyvoro echoed with the other new warriors.

“Do you vow to protect these lands and the people who reside within with your lives?”

“I swear.”

“Do you vow to serve with your brothers and sisters, and never to betray them?”

“I swear.”

“You came here as novices and leave as warriors,” said Usli, “go home and rest.”

Kyvoro and his brother leapt out over Lake Totori in the grey morning light. Avill flew cautiously close to Kyvoro as he headed back to the roost he shared with their sister. Kyvoro suppressed the urge to tell his brother to give him more space; he would need Avill’s help if he wished to court Lodli. 

As they arrived at Kyvoro’s roost they found Ithi, sitting at the back and sharpening blades for trade. When Kyvoro and Avill clamoured through the door she stood to greet them.

“Well, are you finally wearing warriors braids?” she asked.

“See for yourself,” said Kyvoro, kneeling before her so she could run her fingers over Avill’s work.

“Baby brother, I’m proud of you,” she said tweaking his beak, “but no more scaring us now that you’re a warrior.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“If you wish to rest now,” said Avill as a means of excusing himself.

“Avill, actually I need your help...” said Kyvoro, standing to halt his brother.

Avill stood, his expression one of surprise that Kyvoro might request anything.

“I want to court Lodli,” he said quickly.

“Oh, Kyvoro,” sighed Ithi.

“Ithi, I know you approached Senla, but given how limited our choices have become since then, might they not have changed their minds?”

“Wait,” said Avill, his brow knitted in annoyance, “Ithi, you approached Senla? You said nothing about this.”

“Because I didn’t think you’d want to know how intolerably rude your fellow warriors are,” said Ithi.

“So she turned us down?” Avill clarified.

“She turned me down, Avill. Somehow, everyone is convinced that you’re both tainted stock because you have a blind runt for a sister,” she said angrily.

“Ithi,” breathed Kyvoro, “don’t say such things.”

“My lot is no worse than anyone else,” Ithi said dismissively, “at least _I_ won’t be forced to marry against my will.”

“Wait...what do you know?” said Avill, catching the tone in her voice, “have you heard something about Kyvoro?”

Ithi scoffed.

“No one wants anything to to with Kyvoro—”

“Is there a less insulting way to say that?” Kyvoro interrupted.

“—but _you’ve_ fathered healthy offspring,” Ithi continued, ignoring Kyvoro.

“What—who’s...” Avill seemed at a loss.

“Nasoli proposed a union between you and Osol and Kaneli managed to quash it. He doesn’t want his little protégé Teba picking up Harth’s bad habits.”

“Harth’s bad habits?”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen like this,” Kyvoro moaned, covering his face.

“Kyvoro, just hold on...Ithi...this union with Osol has no chance of happening, correct?”

“No, it’s the last thing Kaneli wants.”

“And what the hell does he mean by ‘Harth’s bad habits’?” said Avill, his face growing twisted in anger for the first time that Kyvoro could remember.

“Avill, please,” scoffed Ithi, “your kid’s a terror.”

“Ithi, don’t torment him,” begged Kyvoro.

“Harth had to grow up without a mother!”

“So did Kyvoro!” shouted Ithi, “so did we for that matter! Or do you not remember how young we were?”

“I only remember that I suddenly had to be both mother and father to you both before I had even grown my adult flight feathers!” Avill snapped, “Kyvoro didn’t even have down yet, and Dad certainly didn’t have time to hold him all hours of the day!”

“Hey! I held him as much as you did!”

“I don’t want to be a part of this...”

Kyvoro shed his leather armour while Ithi and Avill argued and pulled himself up into his hammock letting it swing wildly under his momentum. He imagined the hunger that never quite seemed to go away on their meagre rations was eating away at Avill and Ithi just as much as it was him.

“Kyvoro, we’ll speak later,” said Avill finally as he left, “I have to go before Ithi makes me say something I regret.”

Ithi pushed off and flitted to her hammock beside Kyvoro’s.

“I’m sorry my arrival to this world ruined your childhood,” Kyvoro said in annoyance.

“No...I didn’t mean that. I know Avill didn’t either,” she said, “keeping you warm was not a burden. I liked having someone tinier than me to hold in my wings...and you were so good.”

Kyvoro swallowed hard and changed the subject.

“Why did you have to say that about Harth? You know that’s the only thing that sets him off.”

“Avill is remarkably ignorant where his son is concerned.” said Ithi.

“So he’s rowdy. He’s a kid,” sighed Kyvoro.

“You are never the one left with him,” Ithi pointed out.

“Ithi, since you’ve now ruined the talk I wanted to have with Avill, the very least you can do is let me sleep...”

As Kyvoro rolled onto his side his stomach rumbled.

“Do we have any food?” he asked.

“I saved you a little broth, but you’ll have to take it cold.”

Kyvoro covered his face with his wing in agitation. He hoped they would be able to push back the monsters and find where the game had retreated to soon; he would rather go at the end of a blade than in this slow decay of starvation.

“I’ll take it when I wake,” he said.

**Avill**

Usli sent Avill to do a flyover with Skoss by Hebra Plunge on one rare, bright day in deep winter. Avill hadn’t been assigned to anything particularly taxing since he had been injured in the lynel attack a year prior. The bald patches on his upper wing still remained—he covered them with grease to protect from the cold—but it was Avill’s fear of leaving Harth alone in the world after that terrible battle that had driven him to beg Usli for reduced duties. 

Of course, Harth would have never been truly alone. Avill knew that Ithi and Kyvoro would see him to adulthood, but he remembered how Kyvoro had gone to pieces as a child when their father had fallen. Avill couldn’t bear the thought of Harth falling asleep weeping for him each night while his own emotionally inept siblings awkwardly patted his shoulder and told him not to cry. 

Usli had different priorities though, and Avill simply thanked the Goddess that he was not on this flight with Akarth when he was recalled to duty. Indeed, Avill supposed that this was as good an opportunity as any to test the winds for his brother; he had waited long enough.

It took Avill until they had reached Tama Pond to work up the courage to broach the subject with Skoss.

“Has Lodli received any overtures?”

“Avill...” Skoss sighed.

“This is not on my behalf, but my brother’s,” he quickly clarified.

“I’m afraid the answer would remain the same for both of you; Senla fears for our grandchildren.”

“What choice have you left?” Avill pressed, “Genik? Toloth?”

“The elder has already told us that Toloth is too closely related.”

“And you want to fight with Cosoth over Genik? Have your daughter marry into that monster’s family if you win?”

“The answer remains no,” said Skoss sharply.

As they landed by the pond, Avill was disappointed to see that no fish remained below the frozen surface. Skoss looked up at the sky for fowl and sighed. This winter would be the leanest Avill had ever known. He had thrice boiled the bones of a pigeon he had managed to spot in the white of the snow days earlier, but what he would bring home for his son tonight, he could not say. Avill might tolerate it, but Harth could not live on the watery broth another night and remain well. The thought weighed on Avill, miring him in guilt. He hoped Kyvoro would find more success in his excursion.

“We should go further afield,” said Skoss.

Avill nodded and followed Skoss around the edge of Hebra Plunge. Below, Avill could see a colony of lizalfos circled around an open fire.

“Usli wants the monsters under control so we can secure our food stores,” Skoss said as he circled, “he should have decided this months ago.”

“How do you propose we do this?” asked Avill, unable to summon the energy to curse Usli.

He hardly felt up to this, his last few meals having consisted of increasingly tasteless broth. He wondered at what point that he would simply be drinking hot water and telling his stomach to stop rumbling.

“I’ll get the three on the left, you get the three on the right?”

Avill nodded and whipped out his bow. The lizalfos did not seem to notice them until it was far too late; the two warriors showered the monsters in arrows until they had fallen to smoke. As Skoss landed by the open flame he held up two tails that the lizalfos had shed in their terror.

“What are you suggesting?” asked Avill as he gathered stray arrows from the snow.

“I haven’t yet broken my fast.”

“Alright,” agreed Avill.

Skoss skewered the tails on a spear and set them up over the flame as Avill searched the area for fowl. When Tukoh had been First Warrior, they had aggressively pushed back the monsters that competed for resources with the Rito. Usli seemed buried under his responsibilities, bowing to both Kaneli and Nasoli while he desperately sought time to brood his egg with his wife. It was becoming quite clear that for all of Usli’s amicability, he did not have the tactical sense that Tukoh had.

“I’m glad I’m not brooding right now,” said Skoss, seemingly reading Avill’s thoughts as he passed him a skewered tail, “I can’t imagine Usli’s chick will make it through the winter if it hatches.”

“I might worry for the hatchlings of others before I worried for the elder’s grandchild.”

Avill peeled back the rough skin of the tail and used his beak to tear the little bit of sinewy meat from the bones beneath. He found he could hardly taste it in his hunger, though the thought of eating monster parts would have made him physically ill under normal circumstances. Skoss appeared to think much the same. The lizard tail was not enough to satisfy his hunger, yet somehow he still felt overfull eating that little bit of meat and wondered if his body was adjusting to famine.

After their appalling meal, they set out higher into the mountains, scouting for monsters and more palatable meats. Avill saw Skoss dive sharply as he sighted a hawk and caught it from the air. It was another hour before Avill managed a pigeon and a few blue mushrooms.

When Avill returned to the village it was already dark and Ithi and Kyvoro sat on the floor of his roost with Harth. Their bowls were full, but the smell sickened Avill. Harth ate with little enthusiasm, clearly fighting between disgust and hunger. Ithi looked similarly displeased, but Kyvoro’s face betrayed nothing as he held his bowl. Avill bent down to hide the cloth sack of pigeon and chillshrooms for the next day.

“We saved you some,” Kyvoro said.

“What is it?” said Avill looking at the purple shapes in the bowl.

“It’s fox, right Harth?” said Ithi, but he saw Kyvoro shaking his head subtly behind Harth’s back.

Bokoblin organs. Avill struggled not to weep as he thought of his family reduced to eating the bits that monsters left behind. Winter would not end soon and they were already living in more precariousness than he had ever known. Kyvoro stared at him as though he could see how close Avill was to his breaking point. Avill left the roost with his bowl so that Harth wouldn’t see the pain this was causing him.

Avill sat down on the stairs of the deserted landing. He set his bowl aside and covered his face with his wings as he broke down, trying to stifle the screech that was begging to tear from his throat. He heard the sound of talons on the boardwalk and did not even have the strength to lift his head from his hands as someone sat down beside him and put and uncomfortable wing around him.

“You do cry about everything...” said Kyvoro, “though in this case I can hardly blame you.”

Avill took a deep breath and wiped at his eyes as Kyvoro withdrew his wing. He lifted his bowl stared at the grease which pooled on the surface of the soup. Avill lifted the bowl to his beak and choked down the contents in a quick gulp.

“Harth said he was hungry. This was all I managed today,” Kyvoro told him apologetically.

Avill swallowed hard to keep his dinner down and grasped Kyvoro’s wing. Kyvoro bore it, though Avill saw he very much wanted to pull away, so he let him go after a moment.

“You did the right thing,” Avill told him finally.

“I had to patrol with Akarth today,” said Kyvoro, “he said nothing the entire patrol except that he thought there must be lynels in the mountains eating all the moose and deer.”

“The increased patrols haven’t helped us...we were too lax in the autumn and now we are overrun,” Avill said quietly.

“I don’t have patrol tomorrow, I’m hunting with Genik and his sister,” said Kyvoro, “can Harth hunt yet?”

Avill shook his head; even if Harth could hunt, he worried too much to send him out with such monster activity. He didn’t understand how Akarth could allow his children to do such a thing.

“I’ve been dreaming of lynels attacking,” Kyvoro said quietly.

“They’re just dreams.”

“I can’t sleep. I haven’t been able to in days...between the hunger and the nightmares.”

Avill rested his hand on the back of his brother’s neck and could feel the tense muscles in his shoulders. Kyvoro so often kept his own council; if he was sharing these fears they must have weighed heavily upon him.

“You and Ithi should stay with us in my roost,” said Avill, “then if anything should happen we’ll be two warriors and Harth won’t be left on his own.”

Kyvoro nodded and shrugged off Avill’s wing.

“Skoss and Senla won’t consent to your courting Lodli,” Avill told him, apropos of nothing.

“We’ve been meeting anyway,” he confessed.

“Kyvoro...” he warned.

“In a few moons she won’t need her parents’ permission. I just need help to find out if the elder would approve such a match.”

“You always put me in such a difficult position,” Avill lamented, “you know that these things rarely go ahead without the consent of both families, regardless of whether or not permission is needed.”

Kyvoro stared out at the snow-covered world, winter-bright from the snow’s reflection. The wind blew his warriors braids and Avill could only marvel at how his brother resembled their father when he sat in such solemn silence.

“I think I may love her,” said Kyvoro finally.

“I will do what I can,” promised Avill, “but please—be careful.”

oOo

“Dad.”

Avill’s eyes flew open as he realized that Harth had climbed into his hammock as he slept. He shook his head, trying to clear away the hellish dreams of the talons and wings which dragged him down into icy water. He realized that dawn had not yet broken through the long winter night.

“What’s wrong?” Avill whispered, shifting a little so that he could pull his blanket over his son.

“I’m having bad dreams,” he said as he rested his head on Avill’s shoulder, “and Ithi keeps talking in her sleep.”

Avill lifted his head a little to see that neither of his siblings was sleeping soundly—Ithi was indeed speaking, though it was a string of nonsense and Kyvoro fidgeted, tangled in his blankets.

“I know that it wasn’t fox we were eating,” said Harth, “because only monster parts give you bad dreams.”

“Who told you that?” Avill asked as he smoothed Harth’s hair back from his eyes.

“Teba. He said he read it.”

“Kid reads a lot...” muttered Avill.

“Teba says he’s never had to eat the monster parts.”

“I’m sure even Teba will have to eat them soon enough,” said Avill, wondering bitterly if Kaneli was using his position to ensure Teba had enough to eat at the cost of others in the village.

Avill shifted and tried to get comfortable. Harth was getting a little too old for this, but Avill selfishly wanted to keep his son near him as long as he could. He dreaded the day he could no longer protect him from the world or chase away the things that scared him.

“Just go to sleep,” said Avill, still stroking his son’s hair comfortingly, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Even as Harth slept, all Avill could think of was the hunger which gnawed at his insides and kept him awake. He closed his eyes, but found himself unable to sleep for more that a few moments at a time as Kyvoro writhed in disturbed sleep in the next hammock and Ithi made a declaration about dragonflies.

Kyvoro woke at first light and glanced over to where Avill lay staring at the rafters.

“Is Harth not a bit old for that?” Kyvoro asked.

“How long have you and Ithi been living off monster parts?” asked Avill, ignoring his brother’s judgmental tone.

“We didn’t want to say anything...”

“They’re causing your nightmares.”

“I suppose it’s a relief to know that I’m not losing my mind,” Kyvoro said as he dropped softly to the floor and pulled on his leather cuirass.

“I will speak to the elder on your behalf this morning, but I have a late patrol. I found a pigeon and some mushrooms yesterday. Please cook them for Harth tonight.”

“I have watch tonight.”

“Then tell Ithi, please.”

“Alright,” said Kyvoro, as he slung the falcon bow Ithi had made him on his back with his feathered edge.

“Be careful.”

“You too.”

Avill carefully slipped out of the hammock and left Harth to sleep. As he searched his supplies, he wondered if he would still be able to fly straight if he brewed the end of the dried medicinal herbs into a tea. He decided against it and sat down at his workbench to with a sparrow bow he had begun days before. As it had been the last few times he had picked up the bow, his hands shook far too much to hold the carving tools. He set it aside and rested his aching head in his wings, willing the time to pass so he could get on with his day.

When the sun had risen more fully, Avill took the old pigeon bones and boiled them a fourth time, hoping that there might be a little flavour left to fool his body into believing he had eaten. He returned to his roost with some broth for Harth and Ithi, though as he drank his he realized the more accurate description would have merely been hot water.

He set out towards the elder’s roost, his stomach roiling from the emptiness of the water. Nasoli dismissed Kaneli from her roost as Avill arrived and invited him in.

“I must depart for my patrol soon,” Avill prefaced, “so I’ll make this quick.”

“Go on,” prompted Nasoli, ever appreciative of the direct approach.

“My brother seeks a union with Lodli. Are you aware of any impediments to this?”

Nasoli sighed.

“Avill, I proposed this match to Senla and Skoss when Nekk became unmarriageable,” she told him, “but they wouldn’t hear of it. I reminded them that your son hatched healthy and strong and that we know of no one else in your line suffering Ithi’s ailments.”

Avill kept his expression neutral as he had trained himself to do when others spoke of Ithi as though she had some impediment to a fulfilling life.

“Senla is particularly adamant,” said Nasoli, “and I could not convince her otherwise. This is outside of my power I’m afraid. It’s a shame really, Kyvoro is tall and strong and what’s more he’s a good-looking young warrior. I should think he will easily find someone in a few years.”

“Thank you, Elder,” said Avill.

He left the roost to gather his weapons for patrol. If Kyvoro and Lodli were caught in their clandestine meetings, Avill was sure Senla would place the blame squarely upon his shoulders.

**Lodli**

Lodli finished her patrol with Eloza late in the afternoon. The two of them had taken down a rhinoceros on the other side of the Tabantha Village ruins and she readily flew back to the village to gather anyone available that they might cut up and distribute the meat among the villagers. By the time it had been portioned out, her family had received only a small roast and a bloody bag of bones for broth. They had not been affected so badly as others in the village, she knew—with three warriors regularly scouting, Lodli had not yet been forced to contemplate eating monster parts.

She left her father to cook their dinner; he had excused her when she claimed fatigue from the lengthy flight. She was already late to meet Kyvoro at the Warbler’s Nest and she didn’t want him to think that she had fallen on her patrol. 

When she arrived, the end of the afternoon sun glinted off the snow around the pillars and cast long shadows. Night would soon fall in spite of the early hour, plunging them into a darkness that seemed to go on forever in Lodli’s famished mind. 

The sun did not catch Kyvoro’s feathers with its usual glimmer; but all of the Rito in the village seemed sickly to Lodli. She was surprised by the sadness that she felt as she realized that Kyvoro was no exception. He had gathered all the tree-nuts he could find into a cloth bag—she knew that his family had not been nearly so lucky as hers.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” he said as she landed in the snow.

“Nope, I helped Eloza bring down a rhinoceros. Nasoli and Kaneli distributed it...though I have my doubts about the fairness of it...”

“Avill told me that Nasoli has already approved a match between us,” he said with his usual lack of pretense.

“Is that what you want?” she asked, changing topics just as abruptly.

Kyvoro nodded.

“Do you not?” he asked her.

Lodli had not precisely come around to the idea of marriage itself, but as she spent time with Kyvoro she had come to believe that a match between them would be both suitable and practical. She enjoyed his company, and he never tried to shower her with misplaced affection as Nekk had. She liked that he seemed to be incapable of lying, and had a much more realistic view of what he could offer in a union.

“My parents will fight this, even when I am of marriageable age in the summer,” she told him.

“That’s not an answer. What to _you_ want?”

Lodli took a deep breath and took the cloth bag from him and set it in the snow. He looked a little alarmed that she had stepped so close to him, but he didn’t step back. For all the talk of Kyvoro being the most attractive of their cohort, he certainly didn’t seem to realize it himself. Nekk and Fyrth strutted about as though the Goddess had never made such models of such perfection, but Kyvoro remained awkward in his manner, despite his imposing height and striking plumage.

“Are we friends?” Lodli asked him.

Kyvoro nodded.

“Will you remain my friend no matter what I say?”

“Likely.”

“Kyvoro.”

“Yes...I will remain your friend.”

“I want to wed you,” she said finally, and it didn’t feel nearly so bad as when she had agreed to Nekk’s proposal.

“This...is not a very enthusiastic declaration,” Kyvoro pointed out.

“Because I can think of only one thing to do that would ensure our union.”

Kyvoro gave her a look that suggested that he was awaiting her plan. She reached up to trace her hand down the front of his leather cuirass and stopped just at the edge where it met the feathers on his side. He glanced down at her hand where she hesitated to move from the leather to his body and drew in a shaky breath.

“I don’t mind doing this, but I want to know that you’re alright with it,” she said carefully.

“Are you suggesting...” 

Lodli nodded.

“We would dishonour each other,” he said evenly, but there was no note of offence in his tone.

“What’s honour compared to misery?” she asked.

Kyvoro leaned forward to touch his beak gently to hers. When Nekk had tried this she had suppressed the urge to split his beak, but when Kyvoro ran his beak the length of hers she did not wish to recoil. When she reached up to tug at the strap of Kyvoro’s cuirass he withdrew slightly.

“Must this be now?” he asked, a tiny note of alarm creeping into his voice.

“No, of course not. Not if you aren’t certain.”

“I’m certain...” he hesitated, “I am.”

“Kyvoro, it’s alright. If you need to consider the consequences of this—”

“For me, there’s nothing to consider. I have never been so certain of my feelings toward another...I only wonder, are you certain of me?”

“I said I wanted to wed you, didn’t I?”

“You said that, and you’ve said we’re friends, but...my feelings for you are of a stronger nature. I must know that you feel the same.”

“Yes,” said Lodli without hesitation, though she wondered if she even had the emotional capacity for something more than friendship and the promise of stability.

“And you don’t worry that our children might be...”

“You’re tall and handsome and strong,” said Lodli, drawing him back to her by his wing, “I only worry that our children would be too beautiful and intelligent to find mates that would suit them.”

“Then let us dishonour ourselves,” agreed Kyvoro, leaning in once more to nudge his beak to hers.

Lodli undid Kyvoro’s cuirass as he drew his beak tantalizingly through her feathers. When he reached for the straps of hers, his hands shook so much that she reached up to unbuckle the leather on her own. Kyvoro’s feathers turned from dark grey to silvery down on his breast and Lodli was surprised by how much she coveted this intimate detail. As she trailed her wings down his body, she felt the leanness beneath his feathers. She was sure he could feel her ribs as well.

“Are you really certain?” she asked him as she paused at the sash drawn tight at his waist, “we may end up parents for our trouble.”

“We were going to anyway,” he said, “at least we have chosen to do so with one another.”

They shed their trousers and they wrapped their wings around each other and let nature take over. As their bodies came together, Kyvoro tilted back his head with a surprised gasp and Lodli felt him meet his mark. She leaned back against the stone pillar gasping a little herself. She sorely hoped that if this stuck, nothing would come of the resulting egg but the imperative for them to marry.

Kyvoro stepped back. His earlier enthusiasm seemed to have dissolved into something more akin to shame. As they pulled on their clothes in silence, Kyvoro could not seem to meet her eye.

“We did this for the right reason,” Lodli told him.

“I agree.”

“But you’re conflicted.”

“What do we say to our families?”

“Perhaps...nothing yet. Nothing until we know what comes of this.”

Kyvoro stepped toward Lodli and straightened her braids before he brushed his beak to hers. She returned the gesture, feeling strangely at home in his solemnity.

“I love you,” he whispered, and took off with his sack of acorns before she could respond.

Lodli stood frozen as the wind soughed eerily through the pillars. The setting sun’s light reflected blindingly off of nearly every snow covered surface as she watched Kyvoro’s dark form return to the village. He knew, she realized. He knew that she could not say it and yet he had made his declaration to her and expected nothing in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated :) (Even an anon thumbs up tells me if you're still here for this after a few harrowing chapters)


	8. Cool Safflina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Winter, 79 years since the Calamity. Our food stores remain empty and even those of gentlest bloodlines have resorted to eating monster parts. The malice of those repulsive creatures seems to seep into our very bodies and wear at our souls, but in the absence of meat or fish our only other option has become starvation. We can only pray that we make it through the winter and that spring’s renewal restores us to health._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non-graphic egg laying...that seems like more of a squick warning (yeah, I know, I’m of the old school)

_Winter, 79 years since the Calamity. Our food stores remain empty and even those of gentlest bloodlines have resorted to eating monster parts. The malice of those repulsive creatures seems to seep into our very bodies and wear at our souls, but in the absence of meat or fish our only other option has become starvation. We can only pray that we make it through the winter and that spring’s renewal restores us to health._

**Kyvoro**

The sky around the Lake Kilsie region in the Hebra Mountains always seemed to be grey with cloud cover and heavy, wet snow. The wind whipped that damp cold bone-deep and ruffled Kyvoro’s exposed feathers when he flew patrol in the region, but it also provided the perfect cover to clear the camps of lizalfos in the region. 

That he and Lodli had been paired together for this mission had been a blessing which neither of them wasted. After clearing several camps on the south bank the lake, Lodli grabbed him by the leather cuirass and dragged him in close to run her beak over his. They stumbled together down to a rocky ledge for cover from the wind as they pulled at each other’s clothes, their bodies aching to reunite.

Kyvoro rested back against the pale rock wall that overlooked an improbable arrangement of three stone circles in the snow below. Wrapped in his wings, Lodli snuggled closer for warmth as they basked in the afterglow of their tender transgression. Kyvoro often felt badly used in these moments when one or both of them would have to fly off immediately after, but their patrol had been fruitful and Kyvoro couldn’t bring himself to feel guilt for having his love so near.

“We should just tell them,” Kyvoro said softly as he nuzzled his beak along the side of Lodli’s face.

“Tell them what?”

“How we’ve dishonoured each other over and over again. Surely, even your parents will want to see this situation resolved.”

“Their resolution might be for my mother to take you out and put an arrow in you,” said Lodli darkly.

“I don’t think killing me will go over well.”

“I didn’t say kill...you may just end up like Nekk.”

Kyvoro shifted uncomfortably. Nekk still wasn’t entirely well; he couldn’t yet fly full patrols and seemed to have lingering pain though his wound had long since closed. Kyvoro had avoided him before, but now he took great strides to ensure they didn’t cross paths—especially since Nekk had begun to vocalize his bitterness over losing Lodli.

“If this results in an egg, I can’t imagine I will be in any stronger a position against your parents,” said Kyvoro.

“You absolutely won’t,” agreed Lodli, “they’ll never welcome you...but if there is an egg, no one will have any grounds to dismiss us.”

Kyvoro held Lodli a little longer as he stared out the circles below. The sky was growing dark and they were due back, but there was so little time between hunting and patrolling that they never had these moments on their own. 

Lodli had never returned Kyvoro’s declaration, but as she lay in his wings, he thought perhaps it didn’t matter—she always initiated these encounters, and seemed dedicated to this course. Of course, Kyvoro had not been so foolish as to say it again.

“We should go,” he sighed at last, “Ithi is expecting me.”

Lodli titled back her head and nudged her beak against his. Kyvoro lived in hope that she might say it back, but today was not that day. They stood and dressed in silence and Kyvoro gathered the cloth bag of mushrooms, frozen berries and nuts he had managed to scavenge. As he turned back to Lodli she smiled a little and drew him close.

“Believe me when I say I’d like nothing more than to do this again,” he said as she stretched up to bump the tip of her beak to his, “but I fear I’d die of exhaustion if I gave into this once more.”

“I doubt we have the energy,” she said as she tucked something into the strap of his cuirass and quickly took off.

He glanced down to see that she had wound a sprig of cool safflina though the buckle. He looked to sky and pushed off to follow her, the frozen blossoms blowing in the wind and his heart lighter than it had ever been.

**Gotheli**

The late winter cold blew down from the mountains as Gotheli and Lodli glided toward Sturnida Basin through the swirling snow over Lake Kilsie. Gotheli whistled to Lodli, hoping her fellow warrior could hear it through the wind. Below them was a small lizalfos camp that Gotheli had cleared only weeks before.

Lodli circled back and Gotheli gestured at the encampment. Lodli surveyed the camp in two passes before she whistled a signal—three lizalfos. Gotheli caught her bow in her talons as she readied herself. It took a few bomb arrows to clear the first two lizalfos and Lodli landed and drew her feathered edge to engage the last one. Gotheli aimed at the creature and lodged one arrow and then a second into its flesh. While it was distracted, Lodli finished it with two quick slashes across its throat.

“Nicely done,” Gotheli called.

Pleased that the encampment had been cleared with such efficacy, Gotheli landed to take stock of what had been left behind. She grew concerned when Lodli cast her blade in the snow and fell to her knees, clutching her abdomen. Gotheli returned to her side and grasped her shoulder.

“Were you injured?” Gotheli asked, trying to spot blood on Lodli’s deep red feathers.

“No, I’m alright,” Lodli insisted as she straightened and collected her feathered edge.

“I suppose it’s lizalfos tails for our midday as well,” sighed Gotheli.

She gathered the reptilian pieces and staked them on the empty spit over the campfire the lizalfos had left while Lodli scavenged the area for anything useful or edible. Gotheli was not one to complain about food—even monster parts—but even she had to admit the amount of monster organs she had ingested over the last moon had so disturbed her sleep with nightmares that she spent most days in a haze.

When the skin on tails had blackened and grease dripped down into the fire from stringy meat inside, Gotheli pulled them from the spit and let them rest on an upturned shield. Lodli—as coldly pragmatic a warrior as Gotheli had ever met—ate hers quickly and without complaint. Gotheli found she could barely choke hers down. She knew that other raiding parties must be doing the same throughout the region to keep up their strength. 

Gotheli couldn’t remember the last time she had seen more than a few ice-covered mushrooms in the wild, let alone animals of any kind. She wondered if the lynel who had harassed their village the previous year was once more prowling through the mountains in their territory and devouring the populations of fauna and fowl.

Lodli turned a lizal boomerang in her hands as she warmed herself by the fire. Finding it to be of acceptable quality, she slid it into the leather strap on the hide-wrapped feathered edge sheath. A look of discomfort crossed her face once more and she quickly left the camp to lean against a tree. 

Concerned, Gotheli reached Lodli’s side as she lost everything she had eaten that day. With a wretched choking cough, she fell back against the tree and slid to her knees, holding her abdomen.

“You need to come clean about whatever ails you,” said Gotheli.

“Wind’s picking up,” Lodli said, ignoring Gotheli as she stood.

“I trained you for many years—tell me the truth.”

Gotheli caught Lodli’s shoulder as she went down again.

“Is it possible that this is an egg, Lodli?”

Lodli took a deep breath and nodded and Gotheli tried to keep her expression neutral. A famine was poor time for eggs, even if they were hatched on the right side of the nest. Gotheli suspected that Lodli was too calculating for this to have been an accident.

“There’s a hot spring near here,” said Gotheli, glancing up at the ominous sky, “with a little cave at the mouth of it. Can you make it?”

Lodli nodded and grit her beak but she only made it to the ledge that overlooked the spring before she was once again on her knees, her face drawn in discomfort.

“Hold onto me,” said Gotheli, crouching to pull Lodli onto her back.

Lodli grasped the straps of Gotheli’s cuirass and held on. When Gotheli stood, she was almost unsure if she could manage the weight of another. She staggered the few steps to the edge and spread her wings to glide out over the hot spring. She stretched her wings wide to stabilize them as they lost altitude more quickly than she did on her own. 

Gotheli managed a landing in the shallow of the spring and pulled Lodli’s wing around her shoulders as they splashed up the narrow creek that cut up to where the cascade of hot water filled the spring. Off to the side was a cave, filled with steam from the water which fell nearby. Several rusted Hylian shields sat piled against one wall and Gotheli wondered—as she always did when she saw them—who had left them behind.

“Take off your armour,” Gotheli told Lodli bluntly.

Lodli sat back against the cave wall as she yanked off her cuirass and set it beside her, as uninterested in niceties as Gotheli. Gotheli crouched beside her and held her wing over Lodli’s waist.

“May I?”

“Knock yourself out,” Lodli managed through her clenched beak.

Gotheli pressed on Lodli’s abdomen and could feel the egg, fully formed and close to delivery. That Lodli had made it this far into their patrol was a testament to either her stubbornness or her ignorance. Gotheli had her doubts that when they had set out in the dark that morning Lodli had even suspected that she would be in this position now.

“I assume this is your first one?” Gotheli asked.

Lodli nodded.

“It’s going to be soon,” Gotheli told her, “breathe deeply and stay calm.”

Lodli did as Gotheli bid, and rested her head back against the slick wall.

“Aren’t you going to ask?” Lodli prompted.

“I’m not interested.”

“It’s Kyvoro’s,” Lodli told her, “it would actually be helpful to me if you spread that around.”

“What?” Gotheli laughed, “you want me to help you sully your reputations on purpose?”

“I want to marry him. My parents have been doing everything in their power to prevent the match, but with this,” she said glancing downward, “the only way to save our reputations now would be to marry.”

“While I respect your commitment to choosing your own mate, I think that this is a a horrendous plan—we’re in the midst of a famine! If I were you I would leave the egg out in the snow.”

“I never took you to be so cold,” said Lodli as she shifted uncomfortably.

“You don’t know me nearly so well as you think you do.”

“Oh Goddess,” winced Lodli as she untied the sash around her waist, “don’t you dare put it in the snow.”

“Just relax,” Gotheli told her, “I can’t see it yet.”

“You said it would be soon! It feels like it’s coming now!”

“Lodli, stay calm,” Gotheli reminded her.

Gotheli had been much more frightened than Lodli the first time she laid, and she had been fortunate enough to have Eloza there to hold her. That was another cycle of thoughts Gotheli thought she had banished from her mind, but the memory of cracked eggshells around her always seemed to punch through the barriers in her mind. Goddess, why was she thinking of this now? She needed to stay clearheaded for Lodli.

“Oh fuck, Kyvoro, you’d better make good on your promise,” Lodli cursed as she pressed her wing to her stomach.

“I’m sure he will.”

“Will you take me home after?”

“I can’t fly you home.”

“Escort me I mean. My parents—”

“Oh no, no no. No,” said Gotheli, “I am not facing your parents.”

“I’m in rather a lot of discomfort right now.”

“I know, but you will feel right back to your normal self by tomorrow.”

“Goddess, are we nearly there?” Lodli moaned.

“Nearly,” said Gotheli as positioned her wings so the egg wouldn’t hit the ground, “take a deep breath and just push.”

Lodli took a deep breath and bore down, her hands clenched on the rocky ground beside her.

“Nearly there,” Gotheli encouraged, “you’re doing well.”

“Goddess, fucking Kyvoro!” Lodli screeched as Gotheli caught the egg.

“You did it,” said Gotheli, holding it up as Lodli sat back against the wall, her chest rising and falling in deep huffs, “and you were only a little dramatic.”

“I’ve heard...the first one...is the worst,” Lodli panted, taking the egg and holding it to her feathers.

“You sit with your egg for a bit,” said Gotheli as she rose “I’ll get everything ready to go.”

**Avill**

Avill sat silently in Kyvoro’s roost as he awaited his brother’s return from his patrol. Word of Lodli had reached him through its usual route—Ithi—and he knew that Senla and Skoss would be furious with Kyvoro. Ithi seemed to be faring just as poorly as Avill, ranting as she sat on the floor, unable to focus on her usual task of sharpening blades. That she and Avill had subsisted almost entirely on weak broth and monster parts for the past moon helped neither of their moods.

“Did you not have the talk with him?” Ithi asked as she picked up a dagger only to cast it back into the pile of dulled blades.

“Of course I did,” said Avill, holding his head against the perpetual ache that seemed to now reside therein.

“Then how could this have happened? I thought he had more sense than this!”

Kyvoro arrived at the roost, windswept from his patrol.

“Ithi, I found pigeons—Avill,” said Kyvoro, stopping inside the door in surprise, “why are you here?”

“I’ll tell you why he’s here!” shouted Ithi.

“Ithi,” said Avill resting a wing on her leg to calm her, “just let me.”

“Yell at him, Avill! Kyvoro, what were you _thinking_?”

“ _Ithi_ ,” Avill repeated, “please go make sure Harth gets ready to go to sleep.”

Ithi tossed down the dagger once more and stalked out of the roost, shoving Kyvoro roughly when he didn’t step out of her way in time. Avill stood up to meet Kyvoro who remained where he was, still holding the cloth bag of pigeons.

“Did something happen?” asked Kyvoro.

“What have you been doing with Lodli?” Avill asked.

Kyvoro’s feathers fluffed and he narrowed his eyes.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because...she laid an egg while out on patrol today. Do you know anything about this?”

Kyvoro’s bag dropped to the floor as he grasped Avill’s clothes in desperation.

“Avill, don’t be angry, please don’t be angry!” he begged.

“I’m not angry,” said Avill, though he had to dig into the deepest reserves of his patience to just hold Kyvoro’s wings rather than shove his brother away.

“We only wanted to wed, but her parents despise me!”

“I doubt this will help them come around to you,” sighed Avill, “but I think you will have little choice but to wed her now.”

“Even though it’s out of season?”

“I imagine Nasoli will give you leave to do so right away...you’ve dishonoured yourselves in such a way that your chick will bear that dishonour if you don’t marry.”

“Oh Goddess, the chick,” Kyvoro breathed as covered his face with his wings in panic.

“Kyvoro,” said Avill as he fought the urge to put a wing around his brother, lest he agitate him more, “I don’t know if I can be of any help to you in this, but we need to go to Skoss and Senla’s roost.”

“Senla’s going to put an arrow in me!”

“I won’t let that happen,” Avill promised, “but you’d best bring those pigeons as a peace offering.”

Avill gathered the bag from the floor and handed it to Kyvoro. He put put a wing on his shoulder to direct his brother down the boardwalk to Senla and Skoss’s roost.

“Don’t do anything rash,” Avill warned him, “let me speak on your behalf.”

“I can speak for myself,” Kyvoro told him stubbornly, “it’s my egg too.”

“You always make things worse when you do that,” said Avill.

“Is it possible that it could get worse than this?”

“Just be quiet,” Avill told him shortly, his head throbbing with every step.

As they approached Skoss and Senla’s roost, it was quite apparent that Lodli had caused a stir. She sat at the back to the roost, holding the egg unflinchingly in a blanket as Senla shouted at her.

“You made me take such action,” Lodli insisted stubbornly.

“How could you be so thoughtless!” Senla shouted as Skoss held her back.

“Senla, stop,” he said, “they’ve come.”

Avill stepped in ahead of Kyvoro, prepared to deflect any abuse which might be directed at his brother.

“So it is yours?” Skoss asked Kyvoro as he let Senla go.

Kyvoro nodded.

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Dad, he doesn’t have to say anything!”

“I intend to marry your daughter immediately,” Kyvoro said without flinching.

“Absolutely not!” spat Senla, “not until we candle that egg. If it’s empty, you had better never show your face again! I’ll appeal to the elder to have your wings clipped!”

“No one is having their wings clipped,” said Avill firmly.

“I _want_ to marry Kyvoro,” said Lodli, “and I want him here.”

“If you marry him, you’re no longer my daughter!” shouted Senla.

“Senla, stop,” Skoss intervened.

“What’s done is done,” Avill began, “the elder will approve their match and they can marry and preserve their honour. They’ve already paid the price for their transgression. No amount of shouting or shame on our part will change any of this.”

“This is well and good for you, Avill,” said Senla venomously, “Lodli joins your family and we get your bad blood mixed in with ours for generations to come.”

“I’ve had enough of your slander!” shouted Avill, “there is nothing wrong with Ithi nor the rest of our clan! Now, we will take the egg for the night, as I don’t wish to leave my brother in the midst of such hostilities. Lodli, you’re welcome to join us.”

“Lodli, don’t you dare!” screeched Senla as Lodli stood.

“Sen, let her go,” said Skoss, “everyone needs to cool off.”

In Avill’s temper, he took the pigeons Kyvoro was about to leave as a peace offering and ushered his brother and Lodli out onto the boardwalk. Avill was nearly shaking with anger, furious that his fellow warriors could hold such prejudices. He despised that this had soured his relationship with them.

“My roost,” he insisted as they set out.

“We don’t need a chaperone,” said Kyvoro.

“I think you’ve only proven that’s exactly what you two need!” snapped Avill, pressing a wing over his chest.

When they arrived, Ithi was ready to lay into Kyvoro once more. He anger set Avill on edge and echoed through his pounding head. His chest ached with the tension of the situation; he found he half expected Senla to show up at his door and haul Lodli back.

“Surely you know there are ways of going about this that don’t make eggs!” Ithi shouted.

“Ithi, be quiet!” Avill snapped.

Avill felt as though he couldn’t breathe as he watched the lives unfolding in his roost. Kyvoro settled down beside Lodli at the back of the roost and caressed the egg as Lodli pulled back the blanket to show him the pale shell. Harth leapt from his hammock and begged to see the egg, crowding Lodli and Kyvoro.

Avill leaned back against his workbench and pressed his hand to his breast, his head swimming. A few of his carving tools clattered to the ground as he tried to steady himself. Kyvoro looked up at the noise.

“Avill,” said Kyvoro as he caught sight of him.

“It’s alright,” panted Avill as Kyvoro rose and came to his side, “be with your egg.”

“Ithi!” called Kyvoro, a note of fear in his voice as he caught Avill’s wing as he slid to the floor.

“Avill, what’s happening?” she asked him, reaching out for his wing.

“Dad!” Harth cried as he ran across the roost.

“I’m fine,” he insisted, as Ithi pressed her wing to his chest, “Kyvoro, sit with Lodli. Harth, get in your hammock. _I mean it!_ ”

“Everyone back off a bit,” Ithi said.

Kyvoro rose and hoisted Harth into his hammock before he sat down with Lodli, but everyone’s eyes remained on Avill.

“Should we get Frossia?” Ithi asked him quietly.

Avill shook his head; he was certain this was all just the sleepless nights, weeks of eating nearly nothing of value, Kyvoro’s transgression, and Senla’s appalling attitude. It was all the anger and shame of these past moons, the despair he felt as he went days without finding more than a sparrow, the helplessness as he watched his son stop complaining about monster parts in their stew. Something in him had broken tonight, and he was left panicked and weary as Ithi reached out to hold his face and press her forehead to his.

“Are you crying?” she whispered to him.

“I don’t even have it in me.”

“Get into your hammock,” she said, “I’ll take care of everything here.”

“Ithi...”

“I won’t break any skulls, I promise.”

“Only if you have to.”

“Just lie down,” she insisted, the concern that coloured her tone was startling in its unfamiliarity.

Avill rose and tucked in Harth, though he was still light-headed as he crossed the roost.

“Dad, are you alright?” Harth asked him, as he straightened the blanket.

“I am,” said Avill, “but you need to stay in your own hammock tonight. Don’t bother Kyvoro and Lodli, they’ve had a difficult day.”

Harth nodded his agreement and Avill pulled himself into his hammock as Kyvoro strung Ithi’s beside his. Avill watched over the edge of his hammock as his brother sat down with Lodli and took over holding the egg. They were far too young for this, Avill thought as Kyvoro wrapped the blanketed egg in his wings with a curious expression, though Avill had hardly been much older.

“Avill,” said Ithi as she landed in her hammock.

Avill—too tired to respond—reached out his wing to her. She held it between both of hers and smoothed the feathers comfortingly.

“I know you want to take over the responsibility Dad left to you, but you don’t have to hold us together all the time anymore. I’m grown, and as hard as it is to believe, so is Kyvoro,” Ithi said softly, “you aren’t responsible for this.”

“I’m fine,” he told her, “go to sleep.”

“You first,” she said.

As Avill drifted off, he slowly lost sense of everything except for his sister’s grasp on his hand.

**Lodli**

Lodli awoke in a hammock in Avill’s roost and glanced down to see Kyvoro holding the egg. He had fallen asleep against the back railing, his wings wrapped carefully around the blanket. As she glanced around, Lodli came to realize that she and Kyvoro had been let to sleep much later into the morning than usual. Neither Avill nor Ithi nor even Harth remained in the roost and the sun shone in patches on the floor.

She hopped quietly from the hammock, wincing at the aches which still shot through her body from the day before. She covered her face with her wing; this whole thing had made her feel alien to herself. She stared at Kyvoro, peaceful in sleep, and had the wild urge to run from it all. 

As her eyes traced the curve of his beak, the way one of his braids always seemed to be about to unravel, the stormy plumage that matched his disposition, she realized that she couldn’t leave him alone in this. She couldn’t say what she felt—she didn’t know what it was—but he was her friend, and she couldn’t help the affection she felt for him as he committed so fully to their plan without hesitation. Perhaps that would be enough.

Lodli knelt down beside Kyvoro and straightened his braid. He inhaled sleepily and opened his eyes at the contact.

“Lodli,” he said as he leaned in to brush his beak to hers with the gentlest touch, “If you are the first sight I see each morning for the rest of my days...I might be happy.”

“You don’t need to charm me, we have an egg together,” she said, the words feeling odd as she said them.

Kyvoro reached up and held her face.

“I’m going to make you happy,” he vowed.

“You can try,” she told him as she settled down with the egg, “go rest.”

It wasn’t long before Avill and Ithi returned with Skoss and Nasoli. She was glad to see that Avill looked more his usual self.

“Elder,” Lodli greeted her as the aging silver Rito entered the roost.

“Lodli,” she greeted her, “this is certainly not the usual way of things, but you’ve never been one for following the rules, have you?”

“I suppose I haven’t,” she said stiffly as she watched Avill rousing Kyvoro from his hammock.

“In any case, I have given my blessing that this union might go ahead.”

“Thank you, Elder,” said Lodli.

As Nasoli left, she cast Kyvoro an unimpressed glance where he stood, smoothing his sleep-ruffled feathers. Avill stood beside him, his expression unreadable. Lodli was glad that he had recovered from whatever panic had taken him over the night before. She would never admit how moved she had been by his willingness to fight her parents on her behalf. She had no qualms about joining this family.

Skoss came and knelt before Lodli. He placed his hands on her shoulders in what Lodli supposed her father meant to be a supportive gesture.

“You can still wait until the egg has been candled—just wait two more nights,” said Skoss.

“No,” said Lodli, wrapping her wings protectively around the egg, “whether or not this egg hatches, our dishonour has been exposed. We will wed as soon as we may.”

“Are you really certain?” Skoss whispered, “he hasn’t...coerced you into this?”

“Has anyone ever coerced me into anything? We can marry today if everyone is in agreement.”

Kyvoro nodded vigorously behind Skoss, no doubt wanting to reclaim his honour.

“Then come,” said Skoss, “bring your egg and get ready.”

“I’ll come with you...but I don’t want my egg anywhere near Mom...I notice she’s missing from this party.”

“You have nothing to fear from your mother.”

“Kyvoro.”

He came to her side and carefully gathered the bundle close.

“Avill,” sighed Skoss.

“Skoss, we only want to respect Lodli’s wishes in this matter,” he said.

Lodli rose and approached Avill, confident that he would accept her terms.

“When Kyvoro and I stand to say our vows,” she said, “it’s my wish that you or Ithi hold the egg...I worry about _Senla’s_ intentions.”

“You’ll be fortunate if your mother even attends,” said Skoss as he placed her shoulder in a firm grip and cast Avill a warning look.

oOo

As Skoss predicted, Senla refused to attend the ceremony. Lodli found she was far more relieved by this than hurt. It was a hurried affair, attended only by Avill, Harth, Ithi, Skoss and Antilli. Even the elder had not come out, but sent Kaneli out in her stead to witness the event.

As Lodli saw Kyvoro standing solemnly before the statue of the Goddess, resplendent in his father’s armour, she found that the fear she had felt that morning had been replaced by a certainty. Kyvoro may have been unreasonably grim for his age, but Lodli had grown to trust him, to feel safe in his company. She stood beside him as they faced the stone figure and glanced up at his humourless, handsome face.

“Are you nervous?” he whispered.

“No. You?”

“No.”

“Kyvoro, hurry up,” said Ithi loudly where she stood with the egg, “everyone has things to attend to.”

“Lodli,” Kyvoro said as he took her wings in his, “I pledge myself to you and only you, that we may stand together through all of life’s trials until death.”

“I accept your pledge,” she said, “Kyvoro, I pledge myself to you that we may build a life together in security and friendship until death.”

“I accept your pledge,” he said and bent to brush his beak to hers.

Lodli pulled back a little from Kyvoro as she felt a flower smack against her wing. She glanced in the direction of the projectile to see the her sister grinning.

“Till, don’t throw things,” she said, as Kyvoro bent to pick up the wilted blue flower.

“You got married!” she teased childishly.

“So will you one day.”

“Doubt it,” she said before she grabbed Harth by the wing and dragged him along with her, “let’s see if we can catch some dragonflies.”

Harth made a noise of annoyance but followed her to the edge of the snow covered stack anyway. The two of them took flight into the cold air to the next stack, and Lodli idly wondered if her sister had taken to snacking on insects. Kaneli turned and limped back toward the village, having served his role.

“Kyvoro, come take this,” called Ithi.

“Ithi, you promised to stay with Avill,” he lowered his voice, “that we might have our wedding night.”

“So I shall,” she said as Kyvoro took back the bundle, “but since you had your wedding night before your wedding, you also get to keep the result.”

“Ithi...”

“I helped to hatch Harth. Avill has used up all of your collective goodwill.”

Ithi turned to return to the village.

“She hasn’t eaten,” said Avill shortly, “decide between yourselves who is coming on patrol with me.”

As Lodli watched Avill follow after his sister, she felt a wing around her.

“I hope this makes you happy, I truly do,” said Skoss as he pressed his forehead to hers.

“It does, Dad.”

Skoss turned to Kyvoro.

“Be good,” he warned, before he took flight for the Flight Range.

The winter winds blew as Lodli and Kyvoro stood in silence for a moment before they followed the path up the boardwalk.

“If you want to go with Avill, I’ll stay with the egg,” Kyvoro offered.

“You go, I don’t know if I’m quite right from...” she glanced at the egg.

“You’ll never have to do that on your own again,” he promised.

“Could we put off the idea of another one to a few years down the path?”

He nodded.

When they returned to his roost, Lodli shed her leather and settled at the back of the roost. Kyvoro carefully handed her the egg, blankets spilling endearingly over his wings. As she held it close he leaned in to run his beak the length of hers.

“I don’t regret this,” he said.

“Neither do I. But you must go; Avill’s waiting.”

He rested his hand on the blanket for a moment then left without another word. Lodli glanced down to see the wilted sprig of cool safflina that Antilli had thrown laying across the beige and brown patterns. She couldn’t help but smile.

**Avill**

As night fell a few days after Lodli and Kyvoro had exchanged their vows, Avill drew the curtains in Kyvoro’s roost and set the candling box on the floor. Ithi insisted that she would be staying with Avill if there was going to be a chick in the roost. Though he would never voice it, Avill thought it might be best for everyone if the egg turned out to be empty. As he watched how tenderly Kyvoro held it, he worried that his brother had already grown attached.

“Do you know how to do this?” Avill asked the pair.

Kyvoro shook his head.

“Show us how,” Lodli told him.

Avill held a spruce taper in the flame of a lantern and lit the stub of a tallow candle on a flat holder. He knelt and slid the candle into the open side of the box and stood to leave.

“You put the egg in the open circle,” he said.

He turned to the doorway, powerless against the memory of when he had seen the first sparkle of life in Harth’s egg. Osah had not made it to that day, had not even made it through the first night as Frossia tried desperately to stop the bleeding. Osah’s mother had held Harth’s egg most of that night while Avill lay in his hammock, so paralyzed with the pain of loss that he could not feel grateful for what his wife had left him. He could recall nothing else from that conflicted night, save for Ithi silently stroking his unbound hair while his body refused sleep.

“Can you stay?” asked Kyvoro, his voice cutting through that sickening wave of bitterness in Avill’s chest.

“This is usually a private moment for couples...” Avill hesitated.

“We don’t know what to look for,” said Lodli.

“Alright,” Avill reluctantly acquiesced. 

Lodli took the blanket from Kyvoro as he placed the egg on the open hole of the box. Lodli and Kyvoro stared at the egg in confusion as the light penetrated the shell. Avill had been expecting a clear egg, or perhaps even an egg with the beginnings of tiny blood vessels, but this egg was dark, purplish. Avill had never heard of such a result.

“What does this mean?” Kyvoro asked in a whisper.

“I don’t thin there’s a chick inside,” said Avill, “Frossia must see this.”

“Goddess, am I ill?” asked Lodli, staring at the horrid spectacle.

“I don’t know,” Avill told her as he extinguished the candle, “but you’d best come along. Bring the egg.”

Kyvoro wrapped the egg in one wing and put the other around Lodli while Avill lifted the candling box. Avill led the way to the healer’s roost while the others followed in stunned silence. When they reached Frossia’s roost it was to find her tucking in Saki for the night.

“Avill, can this wait until tomorrow?” Frossia asked.

“I know you think I’m paranoid,” said Avill as he set up the candling box and began to draw the curtains, “but you will want to see this.”

Frossia sighed, the candle light shimmering off of her amber feathers as she neared the box. Kyvoro once more placed the egg in the divot and stepped back to hold Lodli as they stared at it. For her part, Frossia seemed neither surprised, nor horrified.

“Does this mean I’m ill?” asked Lodli.

“No,” said Frossia.

She lifted the egg from the box and laid it on an open cloth on the side table. She held a metal implement over it and Avill felt Kyvoro tense beside him.

“I apologize,” she said, “you may find this disturbing.”

Frossia cracked the egg and Avill rested his wing on Kyvoro’s back as his brother made a noise of protest. The cracked shell oozed a dark purple goo onto the cloth.

“You’ve been subsisting on monster parts,” said Frossia.

Lodli nodded, her wing over her beak and a look of horror in her eyes.

“Since the famine began, every egg lain has grown perverted with malice. Everything we ingest affects us,” said Frossia, “I advise you not to try for more eggs until we no longer live on such vile substances.”

As they left Frossia’s roost, new couple remained shaken. Kyvoro kept his wings wrapped around Lodli as Avill walked them back to their roost. When Avill recalled the sight of that malicious substance which leaked from the egg, he thought it was hardly a wonder that his chest and head hurt nearly all of the time; subsisting on monster parts was taking its toll on all of them.

“Now what?” asked Kyvoro as he covered his face.

To his complete disbelief, Avill realized that Kyvoro had wanted this egg. Lodli’s expression was inscrutable as she stood by his side, but Avill had suspected that she had been far more lukewarm about the prospect from the start. Avill wrapped his wings around both of them. Lodli leaned limply against him, but Kyvoro held on as he had never known him to.

“Try to sleep,” said Avill, leaning his head against Kyvoro’s, “both of you.”

“C’mon,” Lodli urged Kyvoro, taking his wing as Avill let them go.

As Avill wound his way up the boardwalk, he tried not to recall the poisoned egg. They needed to reclaim their territory, but how they would do it with so few warriors and subsisting on bokoblin guts and lizalfos tails, he could not fathom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dunno....a lot happened here... I’ve been playing with the idea of monsters being toxic for a while. I like dark stuff...I’m off-leash with this one.
> 
> This has focused pretty heavily on Kyvoro, Ithi and Avill’s family for a few chapters. Next chapter has a POV I know some of you have been waiting on and some more broadly villagey things, class divides, etc. This isn’t the end of this family by any means, just a foray into some other lives.


	9. The Thaw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chronicle entry: _Earliest Spring, 79 yeas since the Calamity. With the coming of spring we can only hope that we escape the famine which plagues our village. Even the community members of highest standing have stooped to subsisting on monster parts, and starvation has left its mark on the health of our tribe. Yet, in all of this desolation, hope still remains—the first egg since the Collapse has hatched to our First Warrior Usli and his wife Kisot._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This time I might actually get a little gross with injury description. There is also an emotionally abusive parent-child relationship, I don’t really know how to categorize it but...toxic I guess? It’s been hinted at already. Also, themes of pervasive class division really start here.

_Earliest Spring, 79 yeas since the Calamity. With the coming of spring we can only hope that we escape the famine which plagues our village. Even the community members of highest standing have stooped to subsisting on monster parts, and starvation has left its mark on the health of our tribe. Yet, in all of this desolation, hope still remains—the first egg since the Collapse has hatched to our First Warrior Usli and his wife Kisot._

**Kaneli**

The roosts sparkled with dripping icicles that melted in the earliest hints of spring warmth as Kaneli took Nasoli’s wing and they made their way down the boardwalk.

“Mind you don’t rush,” said the elder, clutching Kaneli’s wing in one hand her walking stick in her other. “It wouldn’t do to fall to my death on the day my grandson is hatched.”

“You set the pace, Elder,” said Kaneli respectfully.

Kaneli had never found a mate nor fathered any chicks, but having raised Tukoh from a young age, he thought he might know a bit about the pride Nasoli might feel. After Tukoh and Osol, Kaneli had been the first to hold Teba while he was still featherless and bleary-eyed. The day that Teba had hatched was the only time that Kaneli could recall Tukoh having shed tears. 

Though, perhaps for Nasoli the novelty had worn off—she had two granddaughters by her daughter, but had lost two other grandchildren with her eldest son in the Collapse. Kaneli wondered if age would so wear away at his own sentimentality as it had hers or if that hardness that she had cultivated was some product of the losses she had suffered over her life.

When they arrived at Usli and Kisot’s roost, Usli held the sleeping chick in a blanket against his unclothed breast. Where Tukoh had been quietly delighted to hold his tiny son, Usli seemed anxious. Kisot seemed equally unsettled as she pulled up a stool for the elder.

“We’ve named him Gesane,” said Usli as he carefully handed the bundle to his mother.

“After your brother,” Nasoli said approvingly to her son as she cradled the hatchling in her wings. “It’s a strong name,” she cooed at her grandson.

“Mother, I’m concerned about our food stores.”

“You should be; they’re empty” said Nasoli, not looking up at Usli as she tickled the hatchling’s little face with a feather touch.

“Kaneli...” Usli said in a pleading voice.

“The spring is here,” Kaneli assured him. “The monsters will migrate and the fish will spawn.”

“How did you keep our borders secure?” Usli asked.

“Usli, I had more than twice the warriors you did. I don’t think this is your fault, the monster populations have been growing in recent years,” Kaneli told him, putting a wing around his shoulders.

“There have been rumblings,” Usli said in a low voice. “While Rito starve we must all be careful...I’ve already heard accusations that I’ve been favoured because of my position, but I’ve been dining on monster flesh the same as everyone else. Everything I manage to hunt is for...”

Usli glanced at his tiny son and covered his face with his wing as he shook with repressed sobs. Kaneli pulled him closer.

“Goddess, how could I have brought someone into this terrible world?”

“Usli,” said Nasoli sharply. “This isn’t becoming for someone in your position.”

“Elder, for pity’s sake,” Kaneli admonished her.

“I know I’m not him, Mother,” said Usli, shrugging off Kaneli’s wing. “Perhaps your dear Gesane would have kept back the hordes.”

“Perhaps,” said Nasoli as Kisot took back her child. “Your brother was a fine warrior.”

“This is no one’s fault,” Kaneli told Usli. “Some years the monsters cross our lands in greater numbers.”

“I’ve doubled the patrols, but everyone is exhausted and the blood moon approaches...”

“The warriors will understand, Usli,” Kaneli assured him.

“I don’t think they understand at all...we must be cautious or we may face a coup.”

**Genik**

Genik returned from novice training to his family’s empty roost and cast aside his ill-fitting cuirass. He glanced down to his chest where the leather had gathered the dampness of the Flight Range and rubbed raw the patches of flesh where the last of his childish down was falling away. Glancing at the discarded leather, he could see where the shed down had caught in the gaps and folds of the armour. He winced as he drew his hand over the chafed skin and pulled on a loose-fitting tunic to cover the ugly testament to adolescence.

“Good, you’re back,” said Akarth as he entered the roost.

He set aside the purple-stained cloth bag he carried and Genik realized that this would be another night of monster guts in a series of nights of monster guts stretching back so long that he wasn’t certain he even remembered the taste of meat. He wasn’t sure why he lived in hope that his father might bring back anything that didn’t reek of malice.

Genik watched as Akarth sorted through the precious glass phials on the shelf and scowled at the dwindling supply of pain relievers and elixirs. He mixed a bit into his cup and downed it before he stripped off his cuirass and gestured to Genik for help. Akarth never asked for anything, Genik thought vilely as he went to collect the water he had left to boil, he merely expected. 

When Genik returned to the roost, his father had drawn the curtains as he always did to hide his injuries, and knelt on a cushion, his cuirass and top set aside. Genik brought a lantern closer so he could see the wounds as he unbound the discoloured linen bandages that crossed over Akarth’s shoulder and around his chest, and cast the linen strips into a bowl so they could later be boiled.

The dressings beneath had formed into the cavities of the wounds on Akarth’s back. This was always the worst part. As Genik pulled away the linen cloths, soaked with yellow and red fluids, he could see the ulcerated wounds beneath. They wept infection into Akarth’s leaden blue feathers and Genik closed his eyes against the horror of them.

In the two years since the Collapse the wounds had never properly closed. Genik had not seen the heavy beam which crashed through the roof that night—it happened far to quickly—but in that moment he had lost nearly everything. Akarth, bleeding badly where he had been struck, pulled Genik from his hammock and told him to run while he gathered Amali in his wings. Genik didn’t see what had happened to their mother and Akarth couldn’t speak of it. 

After the Collapse, Akarth had changed from the solemn and stern warrior he once had been to one who was volatile and embittered. Genik knew it was the pain of the wounds and of loss, but even more, he suspected that the pain reliever and cocktail of tonics which Akarth took just to remain standing upright benumbed him to the world. For all Genik mourned the loss of his mother in that terrible accident, that had been the easy part. His father became a living corpse, nearly a stranger to him. It was hard to mourn him when he still stood before him in the costume of those same grey-blue feathers and sharp green eyes.

As Genik cleansed away the corruption with hot water, Akarth tried to hide his pain. It usually came out in threats and cruel taunts which Genik had resigned himself to endure each day so that Amali would never have to.

“Quit digging at it!” snapped Akarth as he flinched under the warm rag.

“You need to see Frossia again,” Genik told him.

“All that witch does is cut away at me.”

“It’s infected, it needs to be cut away so it doesn’t kill you.”

“How is it ever to mend if I let her keep cutting at it? She won’t give me anything more for the pain!”

“If you take anything more for the pain that may kill you, too,” Genik said softly.

“Where’s your sister?”

“Hunting with Antilli and Lodli.”

“Your spirits were put in the wrong vessels,” said Akarth contemptibly. “Amali was born with the warrior’s spirit and yet she is cast aside. It’s a shame that they insist upon training you as a warrior when you might best serve as a warrior’s wife.”

Genik let his father’s words flow over him as the wind. He had heard this tirade before, even tried to remind Akarth that he could scare the elder back into reinstating Amali with the other fledglings, but Akarth’s mind wasn’t what it used to be. In battle Akarth relied on the years of instincts he had honed through many battles—there the mercilessness which the elixirs brought on was to his benefit.

“I said you’re soft, Genik,” Akarth taunted.

“I won’t fight with you.”

“Maybe if you’d go out hunting like Amali we wouldn’t have to live on bokoblin guts!”

In no mood to point out that he hunted everyday, Genik took a deep breath as his father continued Akarth continued to rave and splashed the remainder of the spirits over the wounds. He wondered darkly if Akarth’s release from this misery might come soon.

“It’s the fault of Usli,” Akarth hissed.

Genik filled the wounds with the poultice of honey, rock salt and ground herbs that Frossia provided him. As his father’s ire grew, Genik realized that the dose of the hasty elixir must have been a strong one.

“Someone needs to take charge of the warriors.”

Genik covered the wounds with clean dressings and bound them carefully. As Akarth raged against Usli’s incompetence, Genik took up the bag of guts and left the roost. Perhaps Akarth didn’t notice him leave, or perhaps he merely needed to release his anger for Usli, but Genik could still hear his father’s voice as he took the boardwalk to the cooking pot, dripping cloth bag of guts in hand.

**Gotheli**

Gotheli glanced back at Ralazo as they cut through the sky toward Corvash Peak. The grey-brown Rito’s red-tipped wings were spread wide, his face held the same grim concentration it had all day. It wasn’t as though she blamed him; Gotheli had heard the rumour that Ralazo and Khedli had lost an egg to the malice that seemed to be corrupting them all.

As they reached the tattered banner that remained atop the peak, heralding glories of ages long past, Gotheli easily picked out the dark figure of Avill against the backdrop of the white mountain peaks. More difficult to see in the glimmering light was the sandy plumage of her husband who accompanied him. Hearing a whistle, she glanced up to she the familiar russet-pink of Senla and Akarth’s grey-blue plumage.

As Avill and Eloza joined them, Akarth took the lead, whistling a signal to indicate what they had scouted—five lizalfos, one moblin, all of a high order. Gotheli rose a little higher into the air to unsling her bow and saw the dark clouds quickly rolling in. Usli wanted this done, and as they signalled their intentions the six dived, showering the lizalfos below in arrows. 

Gotheli heard Eloza swear and saw that he had caught an arrow in his wing. As he tried to make a safe landing, Gotheli drew her blade as she plummeted after him. The silver moblin bellowed as Gotheli descended upon it, it’s cry cut short as she drove her feathered edge through its throat. The creature crumpled beneath her as she yanked the blade back and made for her husband.

Eloza held his blade defensively in his non-dominant wing. He needn’t have bothered as Akarth landed upon the descending lizalfos, his talons digging into its flesh as he ended it with a sharp strike of his feathered edge. 

By the time the remaining lizalfos had turned to smoke around them, the weather had changed for the worse. They sky had darkened and snow whipped around them so ferociously that the six could barely find each other as they landed.

“We can’t fly in this,” called Senla through the blizzard. “We need to seek shelter.”

Gotheli watched as Eloza clumsily sheathed his blade. She took his uninjured wing as they scrambled down the trail to a point where the grey rock face formed a slight indent. It wasn’t much, but it cut the wind. Senla and Akarth set to collecting a few nearby spruce branches while Gotheli encouraged Eloza to sit down out of the wind. Eloza stared at the arrow that pierced his wing in numb disbelief.

“Avill, can you help?” Gotheli asked.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Hold him still.”

“Gotheli,” protested Eloza as Avill sat behind him and held his uninjured wing against his body, “I would really rather you—”

“I can’t hold you still, love,” said Gotheli. “Avill’s stronger.”

She pulled her sash from its loops in her trousers and used her feathered edge to start a tear in the fabric before she ripped it lengthwise. Avill helped to stabilize the arrow as Gotheli snapped off the shaft. Eloza grit his beak at the slight movement of the arrow in his wing and tensed.

“You need to relax,” Gotheli told him.

“You know, this doesn’t exactly tickle.”

“Take a deep breath.”

“Gotheli, stop hesitating and— _ahg_...”

Eloza grunted and leaned forward as Gotheli put the arrow carefully aside. He sucked in his breath as Gotheli stopped the bleeding and bound the wound with her torn sash.

“You did well,” Avill assured him.

“Really?” exhaled Eloza leaning forward and drawing in a shaky breath.

“You’re fine,” Gotheli assured him.

“Just like the old days...only there are hardly any of us left...”

Avill sighed and patted Eloza on the back as he rose to check on Ralazo, who shivered miserably beneath his puffed feathers. Senla and Akarth returned with branches which Akarth began to set up for a fire. Senla approached Gotheli and Eloza.

“You stopped the bleeding?” she asked.

“There wasn’t much,” said Gotheli.

Senla glanced back to where Avill held his wings around the tinder to block the wind while Akarth attempted to strike a spark with a flint and dagger.

“In the old days we would have had a light a fire joke for this” said Senla.

“How many Akkala Rito does it take to light a fire?” said Gotheli remembering this game. “Three. One to hire a Northern Rito to start it, one to complain about the job they’ve done, and one to compose a ballad of how the Akkala Rito introduced us to fire.”

“None,” Eloza said through his clenched beak. “They marry their daughter off to Akarth and make him do it.”

“I think mine was better,” said Gotheli as she watched Akarth struggling away.

“You should be forewarned,” said Senla, lowering her voice. “Akarth’s elixirs have been wearing off.”

“He told you as such?” asked Gotheli skeptically.

“His bearing does.”

Gotheli had never paid enough attention to Akarth to know more about him than to stay out of his way. She had heard that he had once been tolerable, but she had to admit that she could not remember such a time, even before the Collapse. She often worried for Genik and Amali.

“What can we do about this?” Gotheli asked.

“Pray to the Goddess the storm lets up before that happens.”

As Akarth cast aside his dagger and cursed in rage, Gotheli thought they might have missed that particular chance. Akarth stalked away into the storm as Avill shook his head in irritation and gestured for Ralazo to help him as took up the dagger and flint. Gotheli was ashamed to admit that she thought Akarth stalking off to his death might serve them better than his vile moods.

They drew closer to the fire as Avill finally nursed a smoking spark to a flame. Senla stared out to where Akarth’s silhouette was almost obscured by blowing snow then looked expectantly back at the group.

“I’m not going after him,” Gotheli said.

“Whatever our feelings about Akarth, we took an oath not to abandon our fellow warriors,” said Avill in aggravating peaceableness.

“And he wouldn’t hesitate to end a single one of us,” Eloza pointed out darkly.

Gotheli glanced at Ralazo. They newly fledged warrior witnessed the debate in silence, as though he wanted neither the burden of having to fetch Akarth nor to weigh in on their current predicament. He shivered by the fire as the sky darkened above.

“He has children who still rely on him,” said Senla.

“His family relies on his son more than him,” Gotheli revealed acidly.

Avill sighed in annoyance.

“I’ll go,” he said finally. “But he’s of your cohort, Senla.”

“Don’t speak to me, _bow-maker_ ,” spat Senla. “Your family stole my daughter away.”

Avill said nothing more as he stalked out into the blizzards after Akarth, his feathers ruffling and flipping as the wind caught them. Senla glared after him and Gotheli exchanged a glance with Eloza, wondering if they were prepared to strike out in a storm if this should descend into violence.

“We should eat the tails,” shivered Ralazo gesturing to the lizalfos tails he had collected.

Senla gathered a few small rocks which she pushed right up to the fire. As Senla carefully arranged the four tails they had gathered to cook, Gotheli troubled about what kind of arguments might erupt from an attempt to share the meat.

When Avill and Akarth returned, it was plainly obvious that Akarth had laid into Avill. Avill’s normally genial expression had grown dark, and Akarth was twitchy and agitated.

“I cannot eat another tail today,” said Akarth as he sat down by the fire and gritted his beak.

“Avill and I can go look for something,” said Gotheli.

Avill cast her a strange look, but perhaps not as strange as the look that her husband did.

“Ralazo, we need your help,” she said as she rose.

Accustomed to taking orders from her, Ralazo stood without hesitation, and Avill begrudgingly followed. She wound down the mountain path with them until they had left sight of the camp. The wind whipped at them and Ralazo wrapped himself in his red-tipped wings.

“Why’ve we stopped?” Ralazo asked through his chattering beak.

“You have a plan?” Avill asked her.

“Eloza can’t fly, Akarth is about to implode, and Senla is helping nothing. Thoughts?”

“Something must be done for Akarth,” sighed Avill.

“I think we need to go sooner rather than later,” said Gotheli. “I can fly with Eloza, but I don’t know how much longer Akarth will be able to fly.”

“I’ve heard only rumours of his wounds. We may have to carry him back in our talons.”

“If that’s the case we should wait anyway,” shivered Ralazo.

“Are you sure you can last that long?” Gotheli asked the young warrior.

“How can we make it in a storm such as we are?”

“Avill, you take Eloza,” said Gotheli. “That will keep you away from Senla.”

“Akarth will try to fly on his own until he falls for the sky,” said Avill.

“Then Senla and I will catch him.”

“The village may be too far,” Avill pointed out.

“The Flight Range then,” decided Gotheli.

“I’ll fly to the village,” volunteered Ralazo. “I’ll get Frossia and meet you at the Flight Range.”

“Do you want to eat first?” Gotheli asked.

“A few bites of tail? I think I’ll just be on my way.”

“Go with caution,” Gotheli called after him as he took off into the blizzard.

“I guess we should see what we’re dealing with,” said Avill.

Gotheli and Avill returned back to the campsite. As they approached they could hear Akarth sharing his ire with Senla. Eloza looked to Gotheli and Avill for rescue.

“This is what Usli’s leadership has done to us,” Akarth complained bitterly. “The novices who have fledged under him are weak. The warriors who complain of their injuries so they might avoid their duties,” he said glancing toward Avill, “are similarly weak.”

Avill’s expression remained impassive and Eloza shift uncomfortably. Certainly, she had heard these rumblings throughout the ranks. Usli was First Warrior because no one wished to be the one to stand against the elder’s son. Gotheli had never thought Usli contemptible—arguably, it was the softness of his heart that put him at a disadvantage in his role—but his malleability often meant that Nasoli had as much control over the warriors as Usli did, and their aims were not always compatible.

“Eat if you wish,” Gotheli announced to the group. “We’re leaving.”

“You think it wise?” asked Senla.

“We’ll return to the Flight Range.”

Gotheli took Eloza’s good wing and pulled him to his feet.

“Go with Avill,” she told him. “Senla and I will see to Akarth.”

“Gotheli...”

Gotheli bumped her beak against his.

“Don’t waste time.”

Eloza went with Avill and they set out ahead of Senla Gotheli and Akarth. Akarth grit his beak as he took off and Gotheli and Senla followed.

“He’s going to fall to his death,” said Senla, swooping into Gotheli’s flight path.

“We’ll catch him,” said Gotheli.

“Might be better to just let him fall.”

“I’m not orphaning two children no matter how appalling their father is.”

“Genik’s very nearly grown.”

“Senla. Do I have your help in this?”

“Of course” she sighed. “It wouldn’t do to lose any more of our number.”

**Frossia**

The wind was strong as Frossia crossed Lake Totori with Ralazo, though she worried more for Saki than for herself as her granddaughter was buffeted by the wind. It was difficult to see in the dark night and blowing snow, but Frossia had made the journey to the Flight Range many times. She had returned to the village with the cling of death upon her more than once.

When she arrived at the Flight Range lodge it was to find it full of windswept warriors. Senla had set a fire and started some water boiling. Gotheli was unbinding a torn length of blue fabric from Eloza’s wing. Most troublingly, Akarth rested on his knees on the landing, holding himself in his shaking wings.

“Avill,” said Frossia as soon as she set down. “Get some water.”

Avill did as bidden without hesitation and Frossia opened her satchel and pulled out the phial of pain reliever. She stood near Akarth, her knees and back protesting as she bent to look at his eyes. He pulled away at the touch of her hand on his face.

“Akarth, do you have any new injuries?” she asked him.

“No. Just give me something for the pain and I’ll be off,” he said tightly.

“I don’t have anything to fight the drowsiness,” said Frossia as she took the cup Avill handed her and mixed in a few drops of the opaque liquid.

“I’ll need more than that.”

“Start with this,” said Frossia as she handed him the cup.

Akarth downed the tonic and handed it back, bowing his head and clenching his fists as he waited for relief. Frossia handed the cup back to Avill for more water and approached Eloza.

“Did you get an arrow through your wing?” she asked as she handed him a bit of pain reliever in the cup.

Eloza nodded and drank it quickly with a little shiver. He shook his head against the taste as he handed the cup to Avill. 

Frossia took Eloza’s wing and gently drew back the feathers to show Saki the damaged flesh beneath. Saki looked upon it without flinching—it was hardly the worst wound she had seen in her young life. Frossia didn’t believe in coddling her, and if she was to pass on her knowledge as a healer she couldn’t afford to wait until Saki was as old as her children were when she had begun to show them the trade.

“That will need stitching,” Saki announced.

“I hope you’re not going to stitch it,” Eloza told her, attempting to joke though the discomfort.

“I could do it,” said Saki.

“You’ll observe and assist me this time,” Frossia told her. “But you can put a nice row of stitches in the next torn wing we see.”

Eloza seemed relieved by this. He leaned back against his wife and blinked drowsily as the pain reliever began to take effect.

“Is this painful?” Frossia asked as she cleansed the wound with spirits and plucked a few broken coverts from his wing.

“No,” he said.

“If you feel the urge to close your eyes and rest, that’s perfectly normal.”

Frossia unrolled her kit and prepared her equipment by placing it in the pot of boiling water. She turned as she heard the rough flutter of wings and saw Akarth take off in the updraft.

“Avill, please ensure he arrives home safely,” said Frossia as she lifted the curved needle from the pot with her forceps.

Avill sighed and took off after Akarth.

As Frossia began the task of stitching Eloza’s wound, Saki sat nearby, quietly observing so that she could memorize the steps. Eloza closed his eyes and rested his head on his wife’s shoulder as Frossia worked. Saki leaned in a little closer for a better view as Frossia showed her how to tie off the last stitch. Her granddaughter had lost her innocence far too young, Frossia lamented; the horrors of the world spared not even the smallest of their number.

“I think we’ll stay here for the night,” Gotheli told Frossia, Eloza’s head still resting drowsily on her shoulder.

“That may be wise,” Frossia agreed as she tied off the bandage she had wrapped around the wound. “Remind him to clean it with spirits, and if it festers, come to me immediately.”

“Or else we may have to amputate,” Saki told Gotheli gravely.

Gotheli’s eyes widened at the dark statement from such a young thing. Truly, Frossia thought, Saki’s innocence had long ago been torn away.

**Kyvoro**

As the snow receded in the spring thaw and the world turned from ice to mud to green growth, the Rito began to turn up early spring plants in their excursions, and the local bodies of water once more showed signs of fish returning. The aggressive measures the warriors had taken through the winter began to show promise as the lands were no longer ravaged by monsters coming down from the mountains. 

As the Rito diets improved, Kyvoro had heard tell of successful egg candlings in the last moon. Though Lodli had confessed her relief over their own lost egg, Kyvoro was surprised to find himself somewhat more uncertain. He had not felt ready for a hatchling, but perhaps some tiny part of him had wanted their egg to develop, if only to see what they might achieve together.

Kyvoro tried to set aside his ambivalent feelings as he awaited Genik at the Flight Range. They had agreed to meet here at the end of Kyvoro’s patrol so that they might hunt into the evening. It was already growing dark, and Kyvoro wondered if his friend had been delayed; Genik was almost aggravatingly punctual.

The sun had dipped beyond the horizon when Genik finally arrived at the the Flight Range. He looked scruffy and dishevelled from moulting, and had the pinched look of one who had gained some height in short period of time.

“Genik—” 

“Let’s just go,” said Genik before Kyvoro could ask what had taken him so long.

They set out for the valley south-west of Dronoc’s Pass in hopes of bagging a few pigeons. Kyvoro was lucky and managed a hawk while Genik shot two pigeons where they stood together on a lip of rock. As Genik landed to collect his game, Kyvoro watched from above as he cast the bag with his quarry into the snow and wrapped his wings around the back of his head. Fearing the worst, Kyvoro set down

“Are you hurt?” Kyvoro asked as he landed.

Genik shook his head, his eyes squeezed shut as he drew in a panicked breath.

“What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t want to tell you,” rambled Genik. “I don’t want you to think this is your fault.”

“What do you mean? What’s not my fault?”

Genik reached out and held onto Kyvoro’s cuirass before Kyvoro could step away from the grasping wings. Weighed down in this sudden fit of despair, Kyvoro wrapped his wings around Genik’s back to try and catch him as he pulled them both their knees. Genik pressed his forehead to Kyvoro’s cuirass as he sobbed, and Kyvoro was momentarily filled with panic, wishing that he knew how to handle Genik’s onslaught of emotions.

“Whatever it is, it’s better if you tell me,” said Kyvoro, his wings resting uncomfortably around Genik.

“I wanted to fly,” sobbed Genik. “I wanted to leave this place, but I can’t leave Amali.”

“I know,” said Kyvoro awkwardly patting Genik’s back. “It’s good that you don’t.”

“They’re going to make me marry Misa! The elder’s already given her approval.”

At that pronouncement, Genik fell apart completely, and Kyvoro was awash in irrational guilt. As Genik wept wretchedly against Kyvoro’s leather armour, all Kyvoro could think to do was to wrap him more tightly in his wings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I’ve been away so long, I’m just trying to get these next few chapters organized a little better. In the meantime, I’ve been talked into a sequel to _For Ages to Come_ and I’ve been working on a few little one shots out of universe as a bit of a pallet cleanser. Anyway, if you’ve stuck with me through the long break in updates, I’m glad you’re still here ♥


	10. Renewal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chronicle Entry: _For the first time since the Collapse, this spring has brought with it multiple viable eggs. The purple malice that infected our eggs in the winter seems to have receded with the famine._

_Summer, 80 years since the Calamity. For the first time since the Collapse, this spring has brought with it multiple viable eggs. The purple malice that infected our eggs in the winter seems to have receded with the famine. The Elder has suggested that in this fortuitous season, women should be taken off of active patrols in hopes that they might take this opportunity to grow their families. I hesitate to warn her that this will be met with heavy opposition by the women warriors, and may indeed have the opposite effect that we planned._

**Gotheli**

The early summer breeze blew through the roost, bringing with it the smell of pine and sunshine. Gotheli could hear the distant noise of boardwalk repair a few levels below as she sat at the back of her roost with her egg cradled in her lap.

She and Eloza hadn’t meant to try—especially given the horrors that had befallen the eggs which were conceived during the famine—they had just got a little carried away one night while he was off duty with his injured wing. She had been hesitant at first, worried that they were moving on too quickly from what they had lost in the Collapse, but once they had candled the egg those familiar feelings of longing returned.

“Eloza,” she called softly up to his hammock.

“ _Hmf_.”

“I have to train the novices.”

Eloza sat up and peered over the edge of his hammock, a small smile displacing his naturally serious expression.

“What are you smiling about?”

“Every time I wake up and see you there...I remember we’re getting another chance. Some of that darkness we’ve been carrying...” he trailed off, his eyes still warm.

Gotheli wasn’t sure that she would ever shed that shard of pain that sometimes ached unexpectedly, but it had had been ebbing into something more manageable, less urgent. She found she was not nearly so afraid of this as she thought she would be. 

Eloza landed softly on the floorboards and knelt in front of her, brushing his beak against hers as he reached out the put a wing over hers. “I hope its a girl,” he whispered as he pressed his forehead to hers.

“You hoped for a boy yesterday,” said Gotheli softly.

“I’m undecided...whatever they are, they’ll be our little warrior.”

“How tender you are,” grinned Gotheli, nudging his beak with hers.

Eloza took the egg gently in his wings as he sat down, shifting a little against the cushions at the back of the roost. Gotheli watched him as she wrapped her brood patch before she pulled on her leather armour.

“What?” he asked, looking up as she pulled tight the leather strap on her cuirass.

“You’re going to be such a good father.”

“You’re being as sentimental as I am...go teach those fledglings.”

Gotheli shouldered her bow and headed for the small landing on the boardwalk near their roost. She took off into the pleasant warmth of the afternoon, enjoying the unusual peace that had taken over the turmoil that usually held her captive. When she found Lodli at the Flight Range, Gotheli should have known her serenity would not last for long.

“What’s the matter with you?” Gotheli asked as she lit the fire.

“I’ve heard a rumour...”

“That statement has never ended well. Who did you have it from?”

“I can’t tell you that” said Lodli, her eyebrows lowered in annoyance.

“So from Ithi then...how can you trust anything she says?”

“They’re going to take us off of patrols.”

“Us. You and I?” asked Gotheli as she unpacked and inspected the fledgling bows.

“All of the women.”

“To what end?”

“Egg-laying, what else?” said Lodli, her voice raw with anger. “They have it in their heads that we shouldn’t die for the honour of our village like the men.”

“Given the winter we’ve had, they can’t afford to take us off patrol...and I thought I taught you that the goal was to stay alive?”

“We lose men far more often anyway! They think with their bows and not their heads!”

“Lodli, the fledglings are coming...”

“We need to speak to the elder before she begins to seriously consider this!” Lodli continued. “Usli will submit to her without a second thought!”

“We need to think about this before we run in there with our bows drawn,” Gotheli told her.

“Fine, Gotheli, I’ll do it without you,” snapped Lodli as she leapt into the updraft.

**Lodli**

Usli had begun to send out the warriors out in full force on those nights that the blood moon rose over Hyrule. It was early summer, the first blood moon of the season, and Lodli perched in the crumbling masonry, her bow strung and ready as she waited for the demon eye to reach its zenith.

“They say you’re not long for the warriors,” came Nekk’s teasing voice.

He was perched nearby, preparing himself for combat. Ignoring him, Lodli experimentally drew the bowstring on her falcon bow, the wood creaking comfortingly under the tension.

“You know, if you’d have married me, you could at least manage the shop.”

“Your vent still hurt?” she asked, not looking up.

“Are you threatening me?”

“Just making conversation,” Lodli said, slowly releasing the tension from the bow and checking her arrows were within reach.

“Well, enjoy your last patrol,” Nekk sniped as he drew his own bow.

Lodli didn’t have time to respond as the world thrummed with that familiar dissonance, smoky tendrils coiled up from the ground, and around them the beasts which they had slain only a moon prior rose once more. The warriors in the complex of ruins wasted no time ending their miserable lives once more, and Lodli was proud to have taken down two before they had even had the awareness to realize they were under attack.

Lodli gave chase to one who had escaped the initial carnage, her heart pounding as it turned to hurl rocks in her direction. She swooped upward, her bow clenched tightly in her talons as she dodged the projectiles from below. Just as she drew her bow, her quarry below dropped with a gurgling screech, an arrow through its neck. Glancing up sharply, Lodli saw Kyvoro, a strange look of satisfaction in his eyes.

“That was mine!” she shouted.

“To slow,” he teased.

As Kyvoro set down to retrieve a stray arrow from the grass and see what else he might salvage from what the bokoblin had left behind, Lodli landed beside him, anger still building in her chest.

“How dare you take my kill?” she hissed.

“In marriage, do we not share everything?” he asked infuriatingly, his solemn face softened by amusement.

Lodli didn’t know whether she wanted more to slap him or to throw him down onto the grass. She compromised by gripping the edge of his cuirass near his hip and drawing him close scrape her beak roughly over his. Dropping the arrows he had gathered, he gripped her leather armour as though he meant to undress her right on the field of their victory.

“Kyvoro! Lodli! We have to go back to the Flight Range!” called Eloza.

Lodli stepped back from her husband.

“Don’t think we won’t continue this later,” she promised as she set out after Eloza, leaving Kyvoro to collect the arrows he had dropped.

**Kyvoro**

Kyvoro awoke to the sweet smell of summer. It was a rare day that both he and Lodli had been exempt from patrols after a late night of clearing newly respawned bokoblins from the ancient ruins south of the village on the mainland. He glanced over to where his wife slept in her hammock, her back to him. In the few moons since they had married, Kyvoro was astonished by how his love for her had grown.

As Kyvoro carefully slid from his hammock into hers, Lodli stirred. He wrapped her in his wings and nuzzled his beak into the feathers at the back of her neck.

“Why are you awake already?” she asked sleepily, reaching back to rest her wing on his thigh.

“Because the sun’s up,” he said.

“But did you need to wake me?”

“I did,” he said, his hand trailing down the feathers on her unclothed body.

“Oh I see,” she said, turning to face him and touching her beak to his. “Last night wasn’t enough, then?”

“No!” came Ithi’s irritated shout from the edge of the rafters where she had moved her hammock away from Kyvoro and Lodli’s.

“Ithi, I didn’t think you were still here,” sighed Kyvoro, quickly withdrawing the teasing wing.

“Goddess, it is just all the time with you two!” Ithi complained.

Lodli sighed and lay back in disappointment, though Kyvoro couldn’t deny Ithi’s claim. Fighting monsters late into the night had set the tone for their return the night before, and something of that energy still remained. Kyvoro nudged his beak against Lodli’s and rested his head on his wing.

“We have the day to ourselves. Perhaps we ought to see if there really are books in the Tabantha Village Ruin.” Kyvoro suggested.

“You really want to do that?” Lodli asked, a half-smile brightening her face.

“You should know by now I only ever propose things in sincerity.”

\---

As they flew east in the swirling Hebra snows that somehow persisted into the summer, Kyvoro thought he might be content for the first time in his life. The poisons that had soaked though his body and mind when he lived on monster parts seemed to have cleared as his diet improved. He never awoke shaking from nightmares as he had in the winter, and his energy had returned.

For her part, Lodli seemed happier as well. Certainly, her parents remained distant—still angry over her choice of spouse—but Avill and Ithi had welcomed her into their family as Kyvoro had known they would. As Kyvoro glanced at her now, flying by his side, he could not imagine that they had ever lived their lives in such agony over marriages.

As they approached the village ruins, Kyvoro could see several campfires where monsters warmed themselves and cooked their meat. Circling above, Kyvoro and Lodli surveyed the monsters as they formulated a plan.

Still flying high on their success of the previous night, they took out the monsters in clusters from above. As Lodli strategically shot an ice chuchu, Kyvoro dropped down to end the lizalfos caught frozen in its icy gust. They barely had to signal to each other as they weaved back and forth above the collapsed houses, laying their enemies to rest.

When the ruin was cleared, Lodli landed near a fire that still burned in the remains of a house. Her chest rose and fell as she caught her breath, little puffs of vapour surrounding her face with each pant. Kyvoro landed beside her and she grinned.

“We’re good together,” she said. “So long as you aren’t stealing my kills.”

That was as close as Lodli got to an admission of affection, Kyvoro had learned. He leaned in to brush his beak to hers and it progressed into completing what they had begun that morning. 

Afterwards, as Lodli lay stretched out on top of him, Kyvoro played with her dark red braids. She rested her head on his breast and he wrapped her in his wings, though the frost-covered floorboards on which he lay had begun to seep their cold into his flesh.

“Kyvoro,” she said softly.

“Lodli.”

“Fly away with me.”

“Where?” Kyvoro asked with a small laugh.

“Anywhere,” she said despondently.

“Are you alright?” he asked, nudging the top of her head with his beak.

“What would you say I’m meant to do in life?”

“Be a warrior, I suppose.”

“I like it,” she said. “I like the honour, the respect, the years of gruelling practice. I don’t know if it’s what I am meant to do, but it’s good enough.”

“I like those things, too,” agreed Kyvoro, a little confused.

“Nasoli wants to take that away from me so that I can fulfill my obligation to procreate.”

“What?”

“Is Ithi ever wrong about the things she hears?” asked Lodli.

“Sometimes.”

“I don’t want them to take this from me and stick me in a roost to brood.”

“Lodli, we can wait as long as you want,” Kyvoro assured her.

After the corrupted egg, he also feared what another attempt might bring.

“What if I said...never.”

“I think—right now—I could agree to that.”

“And the leaving?” she asked.

“I can’t leave Ithi behind,” said Kyvoro. “And Avill would fall to pieces with worry for us...and would you not miss Antilli?”

“I’m sure I’d miss a few people,” she said, propping herself on her wings so that she could look at him. “But what if it were the only path to happiness?”

“I’m happy right now, and I never thought I could be,” said Kyvoro as he tidied the soft feathers on her cheeks. 

“Promise you’ll tell me when that fades,” Lodli said. “And then perhaps you’ll wish to leave with me.”

**Gotheli**

Gotheli had to admit that she was rather fond of night patrol. The monsters would huddle around their campfires, grunting in their sleep or lethargically staring at nothing, unable to see what came for them on silent wings. For an accomplished archer such as herself, a colony could be cleared in mere moments under good conditions, but even for the less accomplished archers among them, the challenges of raiding a monster settlement at night hardly compared to the day. She might later reflect that the lax attitude with which they approached these exercises were the warriors’ undoing.

The assignment was not an unusual one. The colony between the end of Dronoc’s Pass and Hebra Plunge had resurrected, and Usli sent Gotheli—along with Ralazo, Avill and Senla—to see to it. As the four set out in the dark night, the persistent summer cold of Hebra rustling their feathers as they flew, Senla characteristically needled Gotheli.

“I see you’re taking up your husband’s patrols now,” Senla said.

“Would you not do the same for yours?” Gotheli responded, ensuring the disinterest int her tone carried even in flight.

“Mine seems to recover from his injuries.”

“How fortunate for you both.”

“A little arrow through the wing and Eloza thinks he needs to take two seasons to himself? Perhaps he merely prefers to brood.”

“Ralazo,” said Avill, pointedly cutting through Senla’s rudeness. “How are your newly hatched little ones?”

“Demanding,” sighed Ralazo, but a proud smile warmed his expression. “Guy and Frita. After Khedli’s father and my mother.”

“Two on your first go,” remarked Avill.

“The Goddess has certainly blessed us.”

“You may find them more of a curse than a blessing,” said Senla bitterly. “But you have a few years until they go off marrying into bad blood.”

“Senla!” said Gotheli.

“He knows what he is,” Senla hissed, her eyes narrowing at Avill’s form ahead of her.

Perhaps Avill had grown used to Senla’s abuse in the past moons—from what Gotheli had seen, it had been nearly constant since Lodli and Kyvoro had wed—but to his credit, Avill neither flinched nor responded. Instead he continued his conversation with Ralazo.

“Enjoy them while they’re small,” said Avill.

“They’re so fragile. I’m afraid I fear for them every moment.”

“Sadly, that won’t end.”

“To parenthood,” smiled Ralazo, and Gotheli found herself eager for her own egg to hatch, feeling suddenly years behind.

“Are we going to finish this or are we going to just talk about our kids all night?” mocked Senla as they reached the multi-tiered structure.

“I’m not certain who made you leader of this flight group,” said Avill, pushing back at Senla for once.

“Why? You fancy yourself leadership material?”

“Enough,” hissed Gotheli only an eye’s blink before the sound of a bokoblin’s horn rent the night air.

What had been planned as a routine extermination quickly escalated to full-scale battle. Bomb arrows exploded around them, glancing off the rock face behind them and shaking snow to the ground. Gotheli dived, whistling her position, and took out the horn-blowing sentry with a single shot, praying there were not more of these fell creatures on their way.

Avill engaged the moblin at the height of the structure. He whistled a warning before his bomb arrow met with the monster’s stash of explosives. The light was blinding. Even from the distance Gotheli had managed to put between herself and the explosion, bits of burning debris pelted her. She had little time to do more than brush out the burning points on her wing before she dropped once more.

The moblin swiped out at Avill, its silver pelt marred with open wounds from the explosion. Gotheli drew her blade and used her momentum to drive the point into the creature’s chest. It roared its last as Gotheli pulled the blade from its carcass barely in time to parry a blow from a bokoblin’s heavy bat. As she stumbled back into the snow, the creature fell to Avill’s arrow. 

Seeing her opportunity, Gotheli pushed off once more and beat her wings to gain height. She was about to draw her bow when she heard Ralazo’s dreaded call: warrior down. Senla lay unmoving, sprawled in the snow below.

“We have to leave!” Ralazo called.

Gotheli, too, saw the bokoblins who had heard the braying of the sentry’s horn. They swarmed through the trees, screeching and squealing in dismay. Avill caught Senla in his talons as a hawk might descend upon smaller prey, and the four retreated to higher ground.

Before they landed, Gotheli already knew it was too late. Avill laid Senla gently in the snow and knelt beside her, searching for some sign of life. His face drawn, Avill glanced up at Ralazo and Gotheli and shook his head.

“Oh Goddess,” whispered Ralazo, covering his beak with his shaking wings. 

Gotheli suspected this was his first expedition where someone had been lost. It hardly helped that Gotheli had already been on more than one of these fated treks. She couldn’t unfix her eyes from the arrow that pierced Senla’s neck.

“We die as we live,” whispered Avill, his face unreadable.

“We need to take her back to the village,” Gotheli told them numbly. 

“I’ll take her,” Avill said.

“Avill—” Gotheli protested.

“It seems only right. A fitting punishment for us both.” 

**Avill**

It was late, much later than Avill would usually be out, even after an evening patrol, but the terrible events of the night would not seem to leave him. It was befitting that it was so dark, the strange heaviness of the moonless midsummer night pressing in around him nearly as much as the dread of what he had to do. Avill lamented that it was always he who must bear such terrible tidings.

He slipped quietly into the roost. Ithi slept soundly in her hammock, strung between the window timbers to be away from Kyvoro and Lodli. The couple had fallen asleep together in Lodli’s hammock, Kyvoro’s face pressed to Lodli’s neck as he held her in his wings, and Avill thought he had never seen the two of them at such peace. He hated that he must be the one to disrupt it.

“Lodli. Kyvoro.”

Lodli awoke first, blinking in confusion to find Avill before her. “Avill. Has something happened?” she whispered as Kyvoro shifted behind her, trying to return to his slumber.

“You should both get dressed.”

“What’s happened?” Lodli asked again as she leapt down and began to pull on her clothes.

“Kyvoro, get up. Get dressed,” Avill said, prodding at his brother through the rough-woven fabric.

“Are we under attack?” Kyvoro rasped as he slid drowsily from the hammock and fumbled for his cuirass.

“We’re not under attack.”

“Then why have you interrupted our sleep?” Kyvoro grumbled as he struggled with the leather fastenings, his hands still drowsily clumsy.

“Lodli, perhaps you should sit down.”

“Avill! Just tell me what’s happened!” she demanded.

“Your mother...she fell on patrol tonight,” said Avill, unsure how else he might phrase it.

“Wh-what?”

“She left her feathers as a warrior.”

Lodli blinked twice, though her face showed no emotion. Beside her, Kyvoro stood for a moment, unsure of what to do in light of this news.

“Lodli, I’m so sorry,” Avill said.

Her eyebrows came together slightly as she struggled to find a response, the corners of her mouth twitching before she finally managed to ask, “where is she?”

“You father has taken her back to their roost to sit vigil.”

Lodli nodded, her expression still numb with shock. Kyvoro reached out for her wing, and she pulled jerkily away from him and pushed past Avill to the doorway.

“Don’t...don’t touch me. I’m going to sit...vigil,” she said, making for the boardwalk.

“Let us go with you,” Avill insisted, careful to leave her some space as he followed her up the boardwalk.

Lodli didn’t respond as she made for her parents’ roost, her gait strangely stiff as she fumbled her way up the stairs. Avill glanced back at Kyvoro, who looked lost as he followed after his wife. He wished he could offer his brother some advice, but matters of grief were so personal, and Lodli avoided comfort just as much as Kyvoro did. For all they seemed to care for one another, Avill was beginning to think that their likeness might only serve to tear them apart.

They stopped as Lodli hesitated at the doorway of her parents’ roost. Inside, Senla was laid out on a blanket, the arrows which had pierced her removed, and her armour cleaned of blood. Someone had folded her wings so that they rested gently upon her breast. In the warm, flickering glow of the lanterns on the railing—lit to lead her spirit out into the freedom of the air—she could have been mistaken for sleeping.

Skoss sat before her, his tears spilling silently as Antilli wept in his wings. He looked up to see Lodli hesitating at the door and reached out to his eldest daughter, beckoning her to take his wing. Lodli took his hand and stumbled down beside him, her eyes affixed to the still form before them. That disbelief had not left her face, even as Skoss wrapped a wing around her to draw her in close.

“I appreciate you escorting Lodli here, Avill,” Skoss said, his voice rough with grief.

“Make no mention of it.”

“Senla...would not wish you to be here,” Skoss said.

“I understand,” Avill told him. “Please. Don’t hesitate to call upon us if ever you are in need.”

Skoss nodded his appreciation, his wings tightening around his daughters. Antilli still wept into her father’s shoulder, but Lodli only stared at Senla, her expression as hard and unreadable as ever.

“Come, Kyvoro,” Avill said, one wing on Kyvoro’s shoulder as he steered him down the boardwalk. Kyvoro jerked away from the touch, just as Avill had expected he would. “We need to go home,” Avill reminded Kyvoro when he hesitated.

“She’s my wife,” Kyvoro protested, glancing back at the roost.

“And her family’s wishes have always been that you weren’t her husband. Let her have this last night with her mother.”

Kyvoro stubbornly dug in for a moment before he seemed to realize that this was no time to take a stance against Senla’s wishes, and stalked angrily down the boardwalk. When they arrived at the roost, Avill was not surprised to find Ithi up and awake—he knew she had been lying too still to really be asleep.

“Senla’s left her feathers?” Ithi pressed. She jumped at the sound of Kyvoro knocking over their three-legged stool in a fit of anger.

“Kyvoro, whatever is bothering you, the is not the way to address it,” Avill told him sharply. Kyvoro said nothing and glared back at him, and Avill could only guess that he was still smarting from the snub of being not recognized as family.

“This is bad,” said Ithi.

“You think?” Kyvoro snapped darkly.

“Nasoli has been looking for any excuse to strip women of their warriorhood. She knows an opportunity when she sees one, and an honoured warrior like Senla falling on a routine patrol will be all the excuse she needs.”

Kyvoro dug at the coverts on the back of his wing with his beak in agitation. For Lodli to lose the one thing to which she had dedicated years of practise—especially in light the loss of her mother—might cause the couple strife. Even Kyvoro seemed to realize this.

“Warriorhood is the only thing Lodli cares about,” said Kyvoro, his voice strangely marred with pain. “She would choose it over me if she had to.”

“Kyvoro is there something we should know about?” Avill pressed.

Kyvoro hesitated, uncomfortably pacing a little, and finally settled back against the railing of the roost. “I...don’t know what to do,” he said finally. “This feel so...soon to have to handle.”

“There’s never a good time for these things,” Avill said flatly. “Whatever happens, you have us. Both you and Lodli.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that it's been 100 years since I last updated this. I actually have quite a lot of it written, but there are a lot of moving parts that I have to make sure I am getting in the right order so it takes a little time to make sure that the chapters all fit together properly. I'm trying to time this all right because there's some upcoming information in this fic and _The Flock_ that I want to release at the same time, so hopefully that will be an event ^^
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me <3

**Author's Note:**

>  **Content Warnings:**  
>  \- character death  
> \- blood and injury  
> \- serious injuries  
> \- enforced heteronormativity  
> \- arranged marriages  
> \- M rated sexual content  
> \- sexism  
> \- classism  
> \- generally poor attitudes toward disability  
> \- egg laying  
> \- toxic parental relationships  
> \- a variety of internalized phobias


End file.
